#and i check and nothing happened. you guys are just big nerds with great taste

[morsmoon]

I love Tumblr because sometimes you check the trending page and you see Avatar The Last Airbender trending for no reason at all. Tumblr just knows that it's a masterpiece and appreciates it even after all these years. I love this stupid website

[ramen-rambles]

Quid Pro Quo

Pairing: Kirishima Eijirou x Reader

Warnings: 18+, mutual masturbation, suggestive texts 

Word Count: 2.7K

Summary: From being a total stranger you met on a dead Discord server, to literally becoming one of your best friends — Kirishima was one of the most amazing things to ever happen in your life. But what happens when you accidentally screenshot his nudes?!

A/N: My first BNHarem server collab! I was really close to naming this fic Penis Pals, if I’m being honest LOL It’s a lot shorter than I wanted but I hope I did my baby justice. Thank you to my fellow Bakugou Fanclub members for hyping me up and helping me edit this piece. I literally couldn’t have done it without you guys, ILYSM! Read all the other amazing fics in this collab, here.

Taglist: @lady-bakuhoe @bratwritings @redbeanteax

♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。.

Ever since you were in high school, you had always looked up to Crimson Riot — a pro hero who’s strong, manly, and fearless. I mean, who wouldn’t like him? Now that you were in college, there have been many other heroes worthy of being called the best, but Crimson Riot was still going to be Number 1 in your eyes. So, to pay homage to your all time favorite hero, you decided to join a Crimson Riot Discord server. 

You had started looking for any server invites through all platforms of social media. Google, Twitter, Tumblr, but nothing came up. You had started to lose hope, until you stumbled upon a very old server link on an equally old Reddit thread. You looked at the date it was posted and it seemed to have been made all the way back when you were in high school. You clicked on the link hesitantly, definitely not expecting it to work. However, much to your surprise, the link brought you straight to the server! 

“Finally! Something that actually fucking worked!” You thought to yourself, after hours of scrolling though numerous pages of the internet. 

You were a bit hesitant at first, not really knowing what to expect. Were people going to think you were weird for being such a nerd? What if people thought you were annoying? Or worse, what if no one liked you? 

But that didn’t seem to be much of a problem… Considering that the server was rather dead. 

You clicked through the channels — #general, #merch, #photos, #announcements; the last time anyone really said anything was nearly six months ago. “God dammit.” You should have known. All you wanted was a place to fangirl over Crimson Riot, was that too much to ask for?! You got all your hopes up, just for it to all come crashing down. Feeling a bit dejected, it seemed like you had no choice but to leave the server. Not like there was much of a point in staying anyways. 

But then you saw a notification pop up on your screen.

RED RIOT [Today at 7:56 PM] 

@Y/N Hey! How are you doing? I’m the admin for this Crimson Riot Discord. The name’s Kirishima. It’s nice to see a fresh face here :^) 

Y/N [Today at 7:56 PM] 

Oh hi! I’m doing good! I found your discord link on a really old Reddit thread so forgive me for asking but… Is this server still active? I was scrolling through the channels and everything seemed kind of dead tbh LOL

RED RIOT [Today at 7:57 PM]

Well, if I’m being honest, it’s fucking dead LMAO 

Y/N [Today at 7:57 PM]

F

RED RIOT [Today at 7:58 PM]

It used to be pretty active before but people just kind of... stopped. I made this server back when I was in high school because I just LOVED Crimson Riot so much, ya know? He was the one person I really looked up to. Anyways, how did you even find this link? You must have looked real hard LOL

Y/N [Today at 7:58 PM]

HAHA I did, actually! Took me for-fucking-ever to find a server link that actually worked :( I’ve looked up to him since I was a kid too and so I really just wanted a place to express my gratitude for the role he played in my life. Sorry LOL I’m getting cheesy 

RED RIOT [Today at 7:59 PM]

Well Y/N, I’m glad you found this server! You sound like a really great person and I’d love nothing more than to talk to you about our shared love for Crimson Riot, but this server is whack as fuck. Are you down to move to DMs instead?

Y/N [Today at 8:01 PM]

Fuck it. Why not? 

You and Kirishima had been talking for a while now. Ever since you came across his Crimson Riot server, you two would talk almost every single day. You learned that he actually lived near you too. Call it fate. Exchanging phone numbers, following each other on social media, starting Snapchat streaks, meeting up with each other — the chemistry between you two made it seem like you’ve known each other your entire lives. The both of you had practically become best friends. 

To you, maybe it felt a little bit more than just friends. 

Currently, you were mindlessly scrolling through your Twitter feed when you saw that you had received a Snapchat notification, from, you guessed it. Kirishima. You were expecting it to just be a bland streak of his room or something but you saw something that made your fucking jaw drop.

A picture of Kirishima in a tight fitting tank top and a very noticeable bulge that was covered by a pair of dark grey sweatpants. 

You felt your cheeks heat up, a red blush painting across your entire face. In a state of panic, you fumbled the phone in your hands and in the process you had heard a very audible click. You fucking screenshotted his snap.

Fuck. 

You quickly went into your messages and texted him to try and explain yourself. 

[Y/N]

WAIT SHIT. KIRISHIMA. I DIDN’T MEAN TO SCREENSHOT THAT. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. I SWEAR 

Replying almost immediately, you anxiously waited for what Kirishima had to say about your little mishap. You were seriously hoping that he was just going to let it go and you could both just act like nothing happened.

[Kirishima] 

Wow, I didn’t think you’d be the type to screenshot people’s snaps like that, Y/N :( 

[Y/N]

YOU DIPSHIT. I SAID IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. AND WHY ARE YOU SENDING ME SHIT LIKE THAT HUH?!

[Kirishima]

You telling me you didn’t like what you saw? 

[Y/N]

Okay, fine, you looked good, SUE ME. Is that what you wanted to hear?

[Kirishima] 

It’s only fair you send me one back, don’t you think?

You stared at your phone. What the actual fuck. Was Kirishima asking you to send him a fucking nude? You knew it shouldn’t have, but the thought of Kirishima wanting to see your body turned you on. A small shiver running down your spine at the possibility that he liked you in return. 

[Y/N]

Excuse me, sir. I am NOT sending you a nude. 

[Kirishima]

I didn’t ask for a nude, all I said was that you return the favor. Quid pro quo, ya know? 

[Y/N]

Using big words like ‘quid pro quo’, smh. Since when did you become such a politician? 

[Kirishima]

But, if you want to send a nude, who am I to say no? ;)

[Y/N]

Fucking fine. If I show you one, will you shut up?

[Kirishima]

Depends.

[Y/N]

On what, exactly?

[Kirishima] 

On how good it is

Your eyes narrowed at his response. What does he even mean by that, ‘how good it is’? He should be grateful that you even considered sending him one! Based on your replies, it seemed like you were pissed, but in reality, your heart beat faster with every passing minute. You were never the type of girl to send nudes to anyone, but for Kirishima, you were willing to make a small exception. 

You got up from your bed and rummaged through your closet, looking for something that was a bit more provocative. You picked out a red lace bodysuit that hugged your curves and cupped your perky breasts. Sitting in front of your mirror, you touched up your makeup and fixed your hair, checking yourself out one last time before you started taking pictures. You opened up Snapchat and tried multiple poses, making sure the camera captured your sultriness and how good your tits looked. To mock his teasing from earlier you captioned the photo, “Quid pro quo, my ass.” before hitting the ‘send’ button. 

[Y/N] 

Was that good enough for you? 

You heard no response from him for a good five minutes. You started worrying. “Shit. Was that too much? Did I push it too far?” You chewed on the inside of your lip, anxiously waiting for any sort of reaction. 

And then, your screen lit up again. Another Snapchat notification from Kirishima. But this time, it was way more revealing. He had sent you a picture of him palming his erection, and all it said was, “You’re not even here, and look what you did to me :(“ 

Feeling cocky and with a sudden burst of confidence, you cheekily replied, “Why don’t you come here then?” 

In all honesty, Kirishima didn’t live that far from you. You two were only 15 minutes away from each other, meaning that he frequented your apartment whenever he felt like it. He came over a million times in the past, but this time was different. Very different, in fact. Anticipation was building at the pit of your stomach, but so was a familiar heat that began pooling in the middle of your underwear. 

You tried denying your feelings for Kirishima but you couldn’t help it! Everything about him was perfect. His personality, his humor, his voice, his face, his body… You could go on and on about all the things you loved about Kirishima. 

You would have been lying to yourself if you said that you’ve never thought about him with your hands in between your thighs. Thinking about his massive cock fucking your tight pussy, his fingers rubbing your clit in all the right places, or the way his tongue would feel sucking on your hardened nipples. 

You’d always wonder if he ever felt the same way but he didn’t really seem like he was. 

That was, until tonight. 

You stared at the clock on your wall and saw that 10 minutes had passed, a loud knock on your door making you wake up from the dream like trance you seemed to be trapped in. You quickly turned the doorknob, letting Kirishima inside of your apartment. 

Without saying a word, he pushed your back against the wall and began to roughly grab the side of your face. He captured your lips with his, meeting his kiss with the same aggressiveness, making your head spin at how good it felt to finally get a taste of him.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for us to do this?” He panted, moving down to place sloppy kisses against the crook of your neck, leaving sharp bite marks and dark bruises littered all over your pretty skin.  

“Haaaa, that should be my line” you moaned, “You know how many times I’ve touched myself to the thought of you?” You whispered teasingly, biting the soft flesh of his earlobes. “How many times I wished it was your fingers inside of me instead?” You trailed your fingers down to his, intertwining them with one another before you dragged him into your bedroom. 

You pushed him down onto the mattress, gently getting on top of him and straddling his waist. Grabbing his hands, you placed them on top of your tits, giving them a rough squeeze before you began grinding your wet heat against his clothed cock. 

”Fuck, Y/N, are you sure?” He groaned, “As much as I want this, I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with —“ 

“Eiji, shut up. If I didn’t want this, would I be this wet for you?” You slipped your panties off to the side, two of your fingers dipping into your cunt, showing off the slick that stringed in between your digits. “Here, see for yourself.” You brought your coated fingers up to his mouth, making him suck it until not a drop was left. 

“Shit, you taste so fucking good,” He smirked, “Why don’t you show me how you touch yourself, princess?” 

You slowly made your way off of him, leaning back to position your body against the plush sheets. Slowly spreading your legs, you made sure he got a good view, your pussy practically dripping from how aroused you had become. You snaked your hands down back against your thighs, fingers finding its way onto your throbbing clit. Kirishima was sitting in front of you, all of his clothes still on.

That didn’t seem very fair, now did it? 

“Stroke your cock for me, Eijirou. Quid pro quo, right?” You said wickedly. You stood up quickly to remove the rest of your lingerie, Eijirou’s eyes glued to your body, watching your every move as you moved your hands back to their previous position. 

Kirishima let out a small laugh before he finally stripped himself of his clothing, pulling down his boxers to reveal his impressive length that was already oozing precum. “Is this what you wanted to see?” You nodded desperately. 

“You wanted to see me jerk off while I watch you touch that pretty pussy of yours?” Kirishima began moving his hand against his girth, gathering spit in his mouth before letting it drip onto the head. Lubricating his cock with a mix of precum and spit, he slowly started moving up and down his length. Matching your rhythm, as he watched intensely at the fingers that were still stuffed inside of your cunt. 

Soft moans started escaping your plush lips, the collective sound of small whines, and frantic gasps beginning to fill the room. “Fuck, Eiji. You look so hot stroking your cock like that. Do you imagine that it was my pussy, instead?” You say, panting intensely. 

“Fuuuuck. I’m gonna pound your tight little cunt so hard that you’re not going to be able to walk for days.” He sped up his pace, you quickly following suit. Your fingers pumping vigorously, you continued to rub tight circles over your sensitive clit. 

You were getting closer and closer to the orgasm you craved so much, and the look that Kirishima had on his face indicated that he was too. Your cunt clenched tightly around your digits while Kirishima’s fist held a vice grip on his cock. You had been waiting for this moment for so long, the intensity of your orgasm was surely going to rip through you like a plundering tidal wave.

 “A-ah, Eijirou! I’m so fucking close for you.” Your eyes squeezed shut as you felt yourself cum all over your fingers, your arousal gushing onto the bed sheets and covering the inside of your thighs. 

Kirishima quickened his strokes, the sight of your pleasure the catalyst for his own release as he continued to jack hammer his cock at an animalistic pace. “Please, baby, cum for me, I wanna see you cum all over yourself.” You whined, watching closely as you patiently waited for him to reach his end. Your filthy words were the last push he needed. 

“F-fuck Y/N! I love you so fucking much” he groaned loudly. A few more pumps, and ropes of his cum started painting his chest white, covering his sweaty body, as the remnants of both your orgasms stained the bed. 

You both looked at each other with half lidded eyes, still trying to come down from your intense highs. Breathing heavily, you looked at him greedily and whispered, “You know, I’ve always wondered how good it would feel to fuck myself on your cock.” 

“Well, I did say that I’d pound your cunt so hard you wouldn’t be able to walk for days...” Kirishima cooed as he ran his fingers along your exposed thigh,

“I’d be more than happy to show you, Princess.” 

♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。. ♡ ⌒*ﾟ.❉・゜・。.

[lesbian-percy-weasley]

The Various Breeds of Christmas Trees That Stand Between Us by Gay-Natasha-Saves-The-World on Ao3 (aka the most epic fanfic writer ever)

Ship: Percy Weasley x Oliver Wood

Content Warning: None

Description: Percy and Oliver have been dating since May but as Christmas tree season comes closer, Percy has to figure out a way to tell his family that he’s dating a boy who’s parents run the rival Christmas tree farm or attempt to hide him until January.

Percy’s family has been in the Christmas tree business since before anyone could remember. It was the oldest in town and one of the biggest as well. They could confidently get almost all the town's business and even some out of towners came. Like Christmas tree kingpins, they didn’t let any other competition plant roots in their territory. And they were successful until a few years ago.

Riverside Christmas Tree Farm sprouted right under their noses. A family had inherited the land from the old man who once owned it and they decided to start a Christmas tree farm. Ever since then, it was a race, a competition, a battle of wills to see who will sell more. The feud between these two families for two months out of the year was not to be matched. Not by the Montagues and the Capulets, not by Xbox and Playstation, not even by Coke and Pepsi. No, if you compared the feud between the Weasleys and the Woods to anything it would be a dishonor.

And with every great story of a family feud of epic proportions, there are always a pair of star crossed lovers.

Percy and Oliver started dating sometime around May, not knowing that they were part of rivaling families. Even if they did know, neither of them would’ve given much of a shit.

Percy’s family didn’t know that he even had a boyfriend. He knew that they would make fun of him for it. They always did find something to make fun of him for. You would think they would catch on after Oliver picked him up to hang out practically every week in the summer. Really, they were just happy Percy finally had a friend that wasn’t in the classic literature club.

They did love each other but as late November reared closer, the whole family thing started to become more complicated. They feared that if they kept hanging out as they were they would make their families irrationally mad. Come January it would all blow over but right now they were in rough waters.

They took to hanging out at school together. Oliver spent lunch in the library with Percy and Percy spent after school watching Oliver’s hockey practice when he didn’t have a club meeting to attend. They didn’t mind as long as they could hang out together.

One day, they were sitting in Oliver's truck when the topic of the Christmas tree farms came up.

“Are you ready to pretend we hate each other until after break?” Oliver asked whilst putting his arm around Percy. “We don’t have to. It’s not like my family pays attention to what I do anyway.” Percy mumbled as he leaned into Oliver’s embrace. “I’m sure that’s not true,” Oliver replied.

“I have been staying after school every day for the past three weeks and they haven’t said anything.” Percy laughed. “I’m sure we can get through the next 40 days without the sky falling.” Oliver gave a lighthearted hum in response.

With that, they left the school to drop Percy off at his house. It wasn’t a very long drive between their houses so Oliver didn’t really mind. He could’ve lived on the opposite side of town and he wouldn’t have cared but it was just more convenient. He always dropped him off at the end of the driveway. When he stopped the truck, Percy gave him a quick kiss and grabbed his books.

“I’ll pick you up at 3 tomorrow,” Oliver said quickly. “The movie doesn’t start until 4,” Percy replied with a smile. “Yeah, and it takes 30 minutes to get to the theater and you’re usually slow.” Oliver chuckled as Percy lightly punched his arm. He hopped out of the truck and waved goodbye as his boyfriend drove off.

It was about 2:50 the next day and Percy was waiting quite anxiously for the text saying Oliver was here. He was waiting in his room since his family was all downstairs planning for when they will open the farm. He wasn’t as involved as everyone else. Sure, he did help when it was open but other than that he chose to opt-out of many of the discussions.

Running a Christmas tree farm wasn’t the walk in a park that most people presume it is. Not only did you have the land you had to maintain all year round for a short business season, but there was also a lot to consider when planting. Of course, you have to plant a multitude of different trees like fir trees, pine trees, cedar trees, and cypress trees (not even getting into the different breeds of said trees). And then you had to strategically plant so that all the most popular types were accessible. If someone had to walk a mile to get a douglas fir then they would just go elsewhere.

Then came the problems with having competition. The fact that they had somewhere else to go that was only 10 miles away. They had to quality check meticulously. If one family got a bad tree then they’ll just switch to Riverside and if there are a multitude of bad trees then it starts to add up. And then there has to be a balance of u cut and pre-cut trees. You can’t just chop the good ones then that leaves nothing for people who like to chop their own.

The ambiance is a big factor too. If it doesn’t feel like a Christmas tree farm then people won’t enjoy the experience. That’s mainly what his family was discussing. How to decorate the farm in a unique yet traditional way. Well, that’s the topic they were on when Percy finally emerged from his room.

He walked down the stairs to be immediately met with the gaze of his family. Of course, they noticed that he was dressed to go out. That suspicion was confirmed when he grabbed his coat and his shoes.

“Where are you going?” his father asked. Absentmindedly, Percy replied, “I’m going to see a movie with my boyfriend.” His eyes widened with horror as he realized what he said.

“Boyfriend?” George asked, “Who’s your boyfriend?” Now, Percy could lie right now. Wait until January to tell them the truth. But he already revealed that much so there was really no use. “Oliver Wood,” he replied as he began to tie his shoes.

The whole energy in the room shifted. “Wood? Like Riverside Christmas Tree Farm Wood?” His mother asked a bit directly. Percy didn’t even look up from his shoes, he just nodded. That was when all hell broke loose.

“Traitor!” Fred screamed over a chorus of gasps. “It’s really not that big of a deal.” Percy sighed, finally looking up at his family. “It is a big deal, you are literally dating our only competition.” Ron rebutted.

Percy was starting to get a little angry with his family. “You guys have been pestering me about getting a boyfriend but when I do y’all act like this.” He wanted nothing more than to leave and go on his date. “What I’m more concerned about is the fact you’re wearing your Frankenstein shirt on a date.” George snickered.

“What’s wrong with my Frankenstein shirt?” Percy asked defensively. “You look like a nerd,” Ginny added. “I don’t care. I just want to go see Pride and Prejudice with my boyfriend and there is nothing any of you can do about it.” He was trying to keep his cool but it was obvious he was losing it.

Suddenly he felt a vibration in his pocket. He knew it must be from Oliver so he started to walk out the door.

“Use protection!” the twins yelled as he was stepping out the door.

“Fuck off.” He replied as he shut the door.

He heard his mom scream “Language!” through the door but he didn’t care. He wanted nothing more than to get away from his family. They teased him a lot but he could usually deal with it. It seemed like they were never happy with anything he did. He knows he’ll never live this down.

But he couldn’t let this ruin his date. For years he’s tried to convince someone to go to Austen Night at the theater with them but none of them wanted to. At least Oliver cared enough to act like he was interested. That was more than his family ever did.

When he saw Oliver’s truck at the end of the driveway, he tried to forget about what just happened with his family. He hopped into the passenger seat and Oliver gave him a quick kiss. He could tell something was off. Percy wasn’t the best at hiding his emotions, especially when he was frustrated.

“Is something up?” Oliver asked as Percy was buckling his seatbelt. “I told my family about us.” Percy mumbled, “It didn’t really go well.” A look of concern fell on Oliver’s face.

“You know, if you don’t feel safe, my parents probably wouldn’t mind if you stayed with us.”

Percy looked confused for a second. “Oh, they knew I’m gay it was about the…”

“The Christmas trees?” Oliver asked

“The Christmas trees.” Percy finished. There were a few seconds of silence then they both broke out in laughter. “They’ll get over it. My parents weren’t very happy when I told them but they don’t really care now.”

“I know. What I was more upset about was them making fun of my Frankenstein shirt.” Percy said as Oliver started to drive. “What’s wrong with your Frankenstein shirt?” Oliver chuckled. “Nothing they just don’t have taste apparently.”

When the movie was over it was already dark out. Percy was rambling about the difference between the book and the movie when they walked out. He wouldn’t even realize it was snowing unless Oliver tapped his shoulder.

“It’s pretty early in the year for snow,” Percy said while he put his hand out to let snowflakes fall onto it. “I don’t think the weather cares about your opinion, Percy,” Oliver said lightheartedly. “It was just a comment I know I’m not Jack Frost or anything,” Percy said defensively as he turned towards Oliver.

Oliver couldn’t help but notice how the snowflakes melted as soon as they touched Percy’s bright orange hair. Or how the wind made his nose and cheeks a little bit pinker. All he could think about was how lucky he was to have him in his life.

“You’re so beautiful.” Oliver blurted out. Before Percy could think of a reply, Oliver kissed him. It was sweet and passionate like all their kisses but this one felt different from Percy. It was like his rom-com Hallmark Christmas movie moment and he wanted it to last for as long as possible.

When it did, Percy hugged Oliver as his life depended on it. “I love you, Oliver.” He said into his shoulder. “I love you too, Percy. Even if your family never gets over it, I’ll still love you.” Oliver replied.

Driving home, Percy was still talking about the movie. Oliver didn’t mind. He liked seeing that Percy was happy and after all, the movie was better than what he was expecting.

Oliver insisted that he drive Percy to his house instead of dropping him off at the driveway. He made an excuse that there might be ice on the driveway so Percy just brushed it off. But he knew Oliver was planning something when he insisted to help Percy carry his things in.

Percy did buy a sweatshirt and an ornament from the movie theater. After all, the proceeds went to the local library and they were Pride and Prejudice themed. But it wasn’t anything he couldn’t carry.

“You just want to see my family, don’t you?” Percy said with a smirk. Oliver shrugged “Just want them to know I’m not going anywhere.” Percy rolled his eyes. “Whatever, you can help me carry my stuff in.”

When they walked through the door, Percy’s whole family was watching a show in the living room. His parents smiled at them but his siblings gave only glares at the two of them. Percy brushed them off and headed up to his room.

Percy showed Oliver around it since he had never seen it before. He had the opportunity to talk about his various trinkets so of course, he’s not going to waste it. But it seemed too soon when Oliver needed to head home. It was dark out and getting kind of late but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t help but think about a time when they could live together. No more feuding, no more Christmas tree drama, no more sneaking around as to not get in trouble. Just the two of them, in love. No amount of fir trees would ever get between them.

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (3)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

***

“Welcome to the Nebula! Where our pastries came from outer space! How can I help you?”

You smile as you look at the room full of people. You didn't imagine you had so many people for your grand opening, maybe a few curious. You can thank Jed for doing this article. How are you going to thank him after that? He didn't have to, and yet he did. The sign you ordered the day you received your coffee beans was in harmony with the rest and by far it wasn’t hard to spot you. You were lucky to find an artist who could make you such a sign in a short time. And he was graciously paid for his work.

“Have you made your choice Miss?” you said smiling.

“I hesitate between a slice of Neptune’s pie and your UFO Brownies... they look so delicious!” said the young girl switching her eyes between the two pastries.

“They are! it's an alien chef who gave me the recipe, you'll see in one bite you'll leave ... in a space travel of flavour!” you say jokingly.

“Ha ha that’s really funny! Well, I’ll take two brownies and a slice of Neptune’s pie then! And an espresso with a cloud of milk.”

You prepare the order of the girl, who pays before taking the bag where the two brownies are, the slice of blueberry pie and the espresso. She gave you a big smile before going to a table to enjoy her sweets freely.  

You'll still have to consider hiring someone to give you a boost, because you have to admit, that you'll have a little trouble dealing with it all. Especially if more and more people come over time. While you were writing all this down in your diary, so you wouldn't forget it, you hear another customer coming in and you turn again to the counter ready to serve him.

“Welcome to The Nebula! You said “Oh hey, It's you Jed!”  

Jed gives you a sweet smile while heading to the counter.  

"Well, my little finger tells me that your grand opening seems to be a great success." he said with a laugh.

“Good deduction, Jed Holmes. Thanks for your article, I didn't think I had so many people sincerely. I don't even know how to thank you.” you said embarrassed  

“No need. All pleasure was for me. And then if it can allow Roseville to energize a little ... Why not? With a pretty face like yours, this trade can only hold up well.”

You blush a little in front of his words which made him laugh. Definitely this boy has everything to please. How could his parents have considered him as a mistake? If they saw him today, they'd see that he's succeeding in his life.  

You've only known each other for a few days and you don't know why, but the runner went very well between the two of you, we'd think you'd be friends who've known each other since high school. You see two young girls looking at him and talking to each other.

“Well, well, my little finger tells me that you’ve attracted the attention of these two ladies. What a charmer you are.” you said with a wink.

“What?” he replied before looking towards the two young girls who turned around looking like nothing before sneering when he faced you again, cheeks slightly pink. “I... I know I'm not ugly, but I'm not a beauty cannon either. I'm just... Me. A little journalist, a little nerd on the edges.”

Hey don't say that! If you knew how cute you are... Don't lower yourself to the lower than you really are."

Jed smiles while Danny smiles widely. So innocent... And besides you confirm his incredible beauty. He knows how handsome he is, a real charmer when he wants to. But as Jed he has to hide it, playing the little nerd who doesn't know how attractive he is.  

“So, can I take your order?” you said.

“A long cup of coffee, with cream and sugar. And I’ll take a slice of your March cake please.” he responds putting his glasses back in place.

“Coming right up at the speed of light!”

You gathered his order and give it quickly and when he pulled out money to pay you, you gently give it back to him.

“Well... I didn't get yelled at yet...”

“it’s on the house. It's my way of thanking you for that.” you said with a sweet smile.

“I can’t, here take it” he replied.

“Jed.” you started taking softly his hand to put the money in it. “What you did was the nicest thing on earth that anyone I know has ever do for me. And we barely know each other. Friends I've known since kindergarten would never have done it for me. You can always pay next time. But not today.”

Jed blinked several times before putting his money in his wallet. Then he took his cup in his hand to lift it up in the air.

“To the Nebula. Hoping that he succeeds and brings a little joy to our city so bruised by the current events. Cheers.”

“Cheers” you said lifting up your bottle of ice tea to toast with him before each drinking a sip.

“Excuse me miss can I have a refill? And another slice of your blueberry pie?” said a young woman working on her computer.  

“Sure!” you answer. “Sorry I have to get back to work. But you can take a sit if you want! Unless you’ve still got some work to do?”  

“Well, I'm on a break. I would say that this time I took my time because I am often criticized for not resting. But don't tell anyone.”  

You smile at him and take a pot of coffee to refill the woman’s cup. Jed took a seat not far from the counter and discreetly look at you. For Jed, doing all this on your own must be difficult and he really wanted to help you, but for Danny it's a blessed bread to know that you’re alone. No one could help you if he wanted to pay you a courtesy visit.He’s not going to kill you right away, oh no... He's going to get to know you. To the smallest detail.  

While you served again other customers in coffee and pastries, another entered. And you could say that he was not an ordinary person in view of his clothes and his way of being, he could be defined as a snobbish but influential person. If even a snob like him comes into your business... That can only be a good thing, right?

“Welcome to the Nebula sir! How can I help you?”

“Do you have imperial tea or Vintage Narcissus tea?”

“Uhm...Sorry sir this kind of tea is rare to find and very expensive. I only have red fruit tea at the moment and green tea. I should receive more soon.”

“Tss. Give me a Latte Macchiato in this case.”

You force yourself to smile and start preparing his order. But you feel his gaze on you as if he was stabbing you in the back. Jed gave you a reassuring smile as you returned him and once the Latte was ready, you lay it on the counter.

“Will it be all sir?” you said with a forcing smile

“Your... cakes there... Are they industrial or homemade?” he said haughtily.

“homemade Sir! with only natural products for better taste and quality!”

“I doubt it very much.”

“Excuse me?”  

“I doubt that a girl like you can get "natural" products as easily and cheaply. Or you take the big game out of them. It won't surprise me when you see such a decoration, it's like a junkie club.”

“Who are you?” you said with a nervous laugh

“What ??”

“I said: Who are you? Where do you know me for talking to me in that tone? Just because you have money doesn't mean you can do all you want. Plus, you insult me as a whore.”

“How could you...This is not a way to treat your customers! You can't even handle orders from your customers!”

“Sir... If I am not mistaken, I didn’t force you into my establishment, you came on your own. In addition, you adopt a behaviour that, in another place, you will have been worth an immediate exit with, if the person wanted, a kick in the ass or even more. So, are you going to take something extra or just pay for your coffee?” you replied with an Olympian calm.

Vexed, the man took the cup and spilled his content on the ground before throwing the cup in your face. But for all that, you do not react and you are quite right, with a man like him, better not to blame yourself.

“You don't lose anything to wait, little bitch. I'm sure I'll find something that will make you close your slum.” he said before leaving.  

You take a deep breath, throw the cup in the trash and take the bucket and mop to clean up the still-hot coffee on the floor. You expected to have rough customers but like him and from day one... Not really. But you did the right thing, not to react, stay calm in all circumstances.  

“What a son of bitch. he's never had his mouth broken this dirty asshole rich.” you grunt as you finish wiping the floor.

“Unfortunately, not... and with the influence he has, it's hard to do anything to him.”

You startle slightly when you hear Jed's voice behind you, who had witnessed the whole scene.

“Who's that bastard? How can you let a guy like that treat people like shit honestly??”

“You know men like him... can easily afford to do everything when they can afford it. All they have to do is bribe some people and they're safe. They feel untouchable and only live that way. They know that most people have financial worries and they take advantage of them.” said Jed.  

“What a coward. Money can't save him forever.” you replied.

While you were tidying up the bucket and mop, some customers came to tip while supporting you, facing what had just happened. Some of them swore on this guy making fun of him openly which made you smile. The rest of the day passed quietly; Jed had gone back to work in the meantime wishing you good luck. You check several times that all the doors were closed before closing your café and heading to your apartment.

You suddenly feel someone following you and you turn around discreetly for a guy in a hood. You walk a little faster and you hear the man's footsteps go faster as well. As you feel it approaching to the point of touching you, a horn startled you both and when you turn your head, you recognize a familiar vehicle.

“Hey! Have you ever been taught to not attack a woman? I wonder what we're going to learn about you if I call the cops. Get in. I’ll take you home.” Said Jed opening the door while Danny discreetly shot your assailant with his eyes.  

Once you got on, you closed the door and Danny went back on the road. You're lucky that Danny finishes his job earlier taking advantage of his extra free time to stalk you without getting noticed. This allowed him to study the situation a little more and he now knows that you check everything several times before leaving. And you may do it more often and longer after his visit as Ghostface.

“Thanks. if you hadn't arrived he would surely have...”  

“Don't say anything. I'd rather not think about it. You don't have to thank me. Between neighbours it's normal to help each other, right? You would have done the same for me.” He responds without looking away from the road.

“I'm sure it was these bastard rich that hired him to scare me. I should have beat him like that, he would have gotten the message out to him.”

“And then he would have used his influence to sue you and make you lose your coffee. It's a technique as old as the world.”  

“He loses nothing to wait.”

Jed nods as a bad smile appears on Danny's face. Oh no he loses nothing to wait for sure. Thanks to you, involuntarily, you found a new victim for Danny. But not right away. You have to study your prey before you kill it.

***

(Phew! Finally finished! I'll hope you’ll enjoyed it! if I'm not often distracted, I’ll try to post a new chapter every Friday! This will give time for new readers to read the previous chapters! See ya !  )  

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 4

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader   Warnings: Like one big boy word. Criminal activity. Word count: 3,185. Chapter Summary: Staying late at work is usually nice and quiet. Usually. A/N: This chapter is so dumb but I love it a lot.

Ao3 if you prefer

Y/N would say that one of the perks of her job was getting out of the office from time to time. Sometimes a case required anything from a simple home interview to speaking to several family members over a number of days. She relished in the peace working away from inboxes and water cooler talk however, every once in a while she could find the same serenity in the uniform walls of her employment building. Today was one of those very days. Today she sat at her desk, alone, long past her colleagues' departure at five pm. The overhead lights were off and Y/N, whose fingers sped over the keyboard urgently, was lit only by the cool glow of her screen. 

“It’s not super peaceful when you won’t shut up.” As much as you fought becoming complacent to the voice in all honesty you were glad to have her back in some small way. You hadn’t heard her for days now, not since you started reading Supernatural. It’s only now that you’d finished, she was back to her usual tricks. Some ridiculous ten-minute lecture about you waking up late for work was your reunion this morning. While it was true that you were very late for work today—two hours to be precise—she didn’t once mention that it was because of your late-night finishing off Swan Song. 

That wasn’t too concerning. The voice ignoring your reading habits was minor in comparison to her being back at all. Her return meant your aneurysm hadn't been temporary and you were closer to one of two things. Solving the mystery of why Maggie Hall’s file was so important, or dying.

Obviously, option number one was preferable.

After an entire day of her, you have fallen completely into accepting that she's not going away anytime soon. For the most part, you have let her harp on like she’s looking for a book deal but now that you’re alone and trying to concentrate, you find yourself responding to her. For your own satisfaction of answering back.

She was feeling productive. Each word she wrote punctuated by the precise click of her fingers on the keyboard. A familiar sense of achievement swelled within her chest as she began to summarise her decision on the claim. Summaries are nothing more than detailed endings, which is why Y/N was particularly excited to be writing this one. More so than any other claim she had finished up before.

An ending was exactly what she was hoping for. The unusual situations she had found herself in over the last few days were too messy for even her to organize. Tangled up like a ball of string after being batted around by a cat. Logically then she was focusing on the only thing that made sense, tie up one loose end and the others would right themselves. Finish this piece of work and maybe she'd live.

How unfortunate then for Y/N that the universe did not look kindly upon her attempts to be orderly. How utterly unlucky that she had not guessed any of the answers correctly. Today was not fated to hold any happy endings for her. Not the closing of file twenty-four zero one, nor the reasonable explanations she had been searching for. 

Your fingers stutter to a stop. What the hell does she mean you weren’t closing this claim? You are ten minutes of proofreading away from pressing submit, you had stayed late to finish. At this point, it would take an act of God himself to stop you. 

That’s when you see a flash of light coming from reception. Flash is vague. A beam of light might be a better description, as in, the kind of beam emitted by a flashlight. Wait, there are two flashlights now. Oh shit. 

Suddenly you taste bile in your throat and your hands are clammy enough to be sticky. The voice said this case would kill you and now you’re sitting here working late, and she’s saying you weren’t going to close it and… and… is it going to happen now? You’d assumed it was something in the file that killed you but you’d also assumed you had more time. Really, truly, this could be it. Imminent death means about to happen, not will happen when it’s convenient for you. This is it, isn’t it? You’re about to be accidentally murdered in an office robbery because you stayed to work late. On that particular file. 

She was not prepared to die. Not while there still wasn’t a grey hair on her head or while she hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon. Y/N had no preparations for the end.

No. Not now. It couldn’t be. 

She had no will, no funeral plans, and no video message to her family about a series of clues leading to a great treasure. And on Wednesday night, early June with spring barely making way for summer was the last possible moment she would ever expect to meet her maker.

You want to hide but it’s impossible. Hiding would require you to have some control over your body. An impossible feat, while you're listening with bated breath to what you assume, is your last paragraph. 

Obviously, Y/N would not be dying tonight.

“Are you joking? How is that obvious?” You whisper into the dark, edging into frustration. Barely enjoying the relief of not dying when your narrator is toying with you. 

She still had a new life to begin. One which began and ended with two men that had left as quickly as she'd met them. Fate has a perverted sense of humor and had chosen to push her forward into the unknown. This is why these important men were breaking into her office at precisely that moment.

The footsteps of the intruders get closer. You don’t have a direct view of reception but you’d seen the flashlights on account of it being dark in here. They sound like they're near reception, maybe twenty seconds from coming in. Once they’re in the main part of the office then all they’d have to do is turn a little to their left and they’d spot you. In the corner hanging out. 

But it’s the guys breaking in? The cosplayers. They’re the wannabe Winchester’s who have turned to robbery to get their kicks? 

You don’t know if it's actually them, not really. Not until they do take those last steps into the room but you hear them before you see them. 

“Remind me why you haven't done some nerd computer thing to get this?”

“I already tried, remember? Their system says it’s still in process so none of the details are on their servers yet. And since we need to find out where the money went…”

“... we need to get the physical file. Got it.” Mystery man number one sighs before he continues, “S’no fun killing a monster if you don’t have to work for it.” 

A monster? It’s almost impressive how much these guys committed to whatever insane game they're playing. Almost being the keyword. These guys were genuinely crazy, and that was coming from someone with an unexplainable voice in her head. 

Y/N finally overcame the initial wave of fear that had hit her when the flashlights had cut through the darkness. She reached up and shut off the monitor on her desk, the last thing that had been lighting her up like a Christmas tree. Her laptop was still running in its dock, she had no intention of losing all her work. She only wanted to lose herself, hide, snuffing out the screen, and rolling her chair backward seemed to do the trick. She felt safer already. Her heartbeat returning to something akin to its normal steady rhythm now that she was cloaked in darkness. As soon as they were distracted she might even be able to risk slinking to the floor and hiding below her desk. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take right now though, while they were still on high alert having just arrived.

You’re grateful that the voice is playing ball and giving you some useful information. It’s completely new, having so far only heard ominous foreshadowing and cryptic introductions, but it’s nice. Dare you say it, fun. For once in this whole ordeal, you actually feel like you’re in a story while you do exactly what she says. You sneak the smallest smile when you see their large shadows, finally step into the office. This might be where you have some luck on your side. 

“You check out the desks, I’ll go find the filing cabinets.” It’s pretty hard to make out with their backs to you but you’d wager it was the taller shadow that said that. 

The same bigger shadow starts walking towards the back of the office. He doesn’t know he’s heading towards the break room, although he probably thinks he has all night to figure it out. He can have all the time he wants as soon as you’re under your desk. Once you’re properly out of the way you look forward to not interrupting them as a stupid person might. You were perfectly ok with not being a hero.

Of course, she was not accustomed to the cat and mouse game of breaking and entering. Y/N was not used to dark corners and darker rooms. And since she hadn’t used one since the last time her power went out, she seemed to have forgotten how flashlights worked as well.

“What?” you splutter. Faith in the voice shattered in an instant. 

In the next second, you’re blinded by a light in your eyes, you reach up to block it out but as you do his voice booms out. “Sam! We got company.” 

The tall guy comes running and now there are two lights in your face.

“Do you think we could not blind me?” They start lowering their flashlights when the other shoe drops, “wait, Sam? You-you’re using the names too?” It shouldn’t shock you, they’re driving the car and wearing the flannel clearly, they’re adopting the names too. But until now you’d been able to compartmentalize the books you’d read and the men that drove around in a car with the Winchesters fictional license plate. 

Coming face to face with them she feels completely different now. The territory is hers; her office, her desk, her mug with her name on. The problem; this was not her game, it was theirs. Y/N was simply working late whereas they were more adept at the after-hours version of this story. She might think they were delusional but this wasn’t the first crime she had them on the hook for. She could only imagine the hundreds, if not thousands, of other illegal activities they had gotten away with, all to play pretend.

“Nobody was supposed to be here.” The guy pretending to be Sam says to the guy who you can only imagine is pretending to be Dean.

“Well, there she is anyway.” Wannabe Dean huffs, both angry and disappointed at the same time. “But hey, maybe this can speed everything along, no more looking around in the dark at least.”

They’re both very good at talking about you while simultaneously ignoring you. Neither of them even flinch when you get up out of your chair and walk over to the light switch.

The room flooded with light like any room would when a switch is flipped, however, this wasn’t any kitchen light switch. The office is a large space and the fluorescents required to illuminate it are industrial. It’s enough to pain anyone's eyes with how sharply their pupils contract. Unless you are the one pressing the switch in the first place. It was Y/N’s hand flipping the four switches required and so her eyes were closed in preparation. However the mystery men had been seconds from bickering so they jerk their heads as if trying to escape the inescapable, like it's the first time they've ever seen anything so bright. Y/N felt wholly better with the heat on her closed eyelids. Because she knew when she opened them the office would hers again, the control would be hers.

When you dare to look they both whip their heads to you, shocked that you’ve moved. You’ve managed to find an ounce of confidence in the light, or if you believe the voice in your head, a whole gallon. “I don’t know what game you’re playing pretending to be people, first at the house and now this. I didn’t tell anyone about this,” you motion a hand at where they're standing, “clearly that was my mistake. So, uh-just get out of here and I won’t say anything else about it.”

“Sweetheart, we ain’t playing games here and we ain’t leaving.” 

He steps towards you, a finger pointing to the floor to reiterate that he’s staying put. You wrongly assumed this would be as easy as it had been at Mrs. Halls when they'd run so quickly, forgetting that you'd had an audience there. 

“You are if you don’t want me to call down to security. I’m sure the cops would love a case like this—there’s an eyewitness!” 

Y/N would never in a million years be able to describe where the sudden anger that consumed her had come from. She was hardly an agitated person. She could be sad or sarcastic, she’d been known to give a measured but scathing comeback and some would even call her curious. That’s not to say she’d never been angry, she had, but anger was never the first thing she chose to be, or feel. It was always such a demanding emotion. So, then this agitation was almost foreign to her and the way it forced her hand, more so. 

“Maybe we should…” Not Sam starts before he’s interrupted. 

“No Sam. We need that file if we’re going to stop this thing and right now this is our only option.” He points at you now signaling that you are the ‘this’ part of his sentence; their only option. 

In another life, she might have rolled over rather than stare down the barrel of this argument. She might have seen the opportunity to get rid of them by giving them something small, like say confidential information, and done it without question. This was not her old life, nor the old Y/N. This was the new life she hadn’t realized was starting. The funny thing was she hadn’t needed to know. All she’d needed was this man in front of her to force her into a rage and as if by magic, she had begun to transform.

You push past fake Dean to make your way back to your desk, “that’s not happening. All client information is property of First National which means it isn’t mine to give. Not to mention the fact that you didn’t say please.”

Her shoulder connects with his and it's the exact moment she realizes how close he was standing to her. He realizes the same. He’s close enough to grab her and spin her around but Y/N's body shudders tellingly with his fingers pressing into the flesh of her forearm.

“I don’t know what kind of power trip you think you're on but..." He grits through his teeth still holding you.

“Dean, can you calm down?” 

The breaking point of your anger turns into a sardonic laugh aimed at him. “You too?” You pull your arm away and get back to your chair. “I can’t get normal criminals breaking in while I’m working late? It has to be two weirdos running around pretending to be the Winchesters.”

It’s clear immediately that you’ve said something neither of them was expecting. You’re sitting at your desk waiting for one of them to stop you from picking up the phone, while they don’t seem to even notice your hand is on the receiver. 

“How do you know that? I mean, how do you know about us?” The tall guy that you refuse to call Sam, even in your head, asks. 

Two pairs of eyes bore into you waiting for an answer and for some reason your hand goes lax on the phone. “I ran your plate from outside Mrs. Halls because you don’t work with me. And I found these books but I mean, why are you even driving around with fake plates from some books anyway?”

It was a simple question that you were hoping had a simple answer, you know, fanboys or something. Instead of any answer at all, they start having one of those lovely conversations that excludes your existence, again. 

“Goddamn son of a bitch, we’ve got to get rid of those things.” 

“Charlie said there’s no point now they’re online. How would we even start? Great example right here.” 

“So what? We just roll over and die?” 

Tall guy, not Sam, takes a reassuring step to fake Dean which means he takes a step away from you and your desk. “This might be a good thing ok, if she knows she can help us track it.” 

You refuse to believe it because it’s ridiculous. Those books are works of fiction and there’s no possible way they are real. Because if the books are true then that means monsters are… nope. You live alone so there’s definitely no way. But you should clarify. Even if it’s a thousand percent the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard, you should still double-check. 

“Are you trying to say that you’re actually Sam and Dean? Like, you think you’re Sam and Dean from the books?” 

It’s scarily-similar-to-the-description-of-Dean who leans in with both hands flat on your desk and growls. “Honey, we don’t think okay, we are them. I’m Dean and this is Sam, and those books you decided to read? Yeah, they’re about us.” 

“But that means monsters are…” 

“Real. Monsters, angels, and everything between.” 

She may not have known about the ticking clock already counting down the remaining seconds of her young life. She may mistakenly have thought that her newfound temper was the reason for her flushed cheeks. She did know one thing for sure. One completely life-changing fact with absolute certainty, because that fact was staring at her with more intensity than she'd ever known. A man named Dean Winchester just told her that every terrifying monster she could imagine was real. 

The voice in your head, unfortunately, had not been wrong yet.

Continue to Chapter 5.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23   Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson

[gascon-en-exil]

Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Alliance

It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.

A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Leicester Alliance I therefore have below the male Deer, Almyran and former Goneril indentured servant Cyril, runaway Alliance noble Balthus, and Alois because his biography states that he’s the son of a merchant family. The Alliance is the nation most associated with successful mercantilism, so there.

The Empire

The Kingdom

Claude

Indecipherable from the start. The alluring shirtless selfie and goofy profile read like a fun and easy lay, but rather than sending nudes he engages in long meandering conversations that last for days or weeks before the first meeting. An expert at drawing people out while revealing almost nothing of himself in return, this takes on more literal dimensions when talk and pictures get more explicit; he’ll respond to dick and ass pics with vaguely positive emojis but deflect repeated requests to send some of his own, but he’s so disarmingly chatty that few guys get angry about this. In-person encounters are similarly frustrating in a way that’s hard to convey, as he’s eager to get his hookups naked and cumming via whatever method expedites the process with as little effort on his part. He’s left more than one satisfied but confused partner wondering some time after their meeting if he’s even really into guys at all, or if he’s playing out some weird service kink or vicarious voyeurism. Whatever the case he’s not much the dating type, not because he’s closeted or non-monogamous but because he has other priorities that don’t mesh well with long-term companionship. A shame too, when he’s become a permanent part of the masturbatory fantasies of many a man with whom he’s had even the briefest of encounters (particularly tops, who see in him a cocky bottom who desperately needs to get wrecked). That’s mostly all it is with him though: just fantasies, quick and dirty and unfulfilling because sex is apparently little more than a means for him to connect with people who may help him reach something bigger. Open-minded about his partners’ kinks, but is extremely touchy about race play; he’s aware that he has an ambiguous look about him, and does not appreciate anyone bringing that up even if the intention is completely innocent.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: your erogenous zones, your fetishes, your guilty pleasures

Favored gift: a lavish dinner, not for the expense but for the pleasure of sharing it

Lorenz

You may not like the hair, or the overwrought floral motif, or the polite but pointed way he pursues dates with the men he’s scoping out, but it’s undeniable that his reputation precedes him as someone who is known and who is worth knowing in the community. He’s not as slutty as that suggests, far from it, but he does enjoy his lunch dates and his inordinately expensive shopping dates and generally being as publicly social as it is humanly possible to be. Has an assortment of fem bottom BFFs on speed dial who are always up to the minute with him on social media, but it turns out he’s more versatile than his age and his...expressive fashion sense might imply. Would absolutely love a boyfriend, but judges all his dates in every aspect and considers least of all the size of their dick or what they know to do with it. It’s unusual for him to run across a guy who’s as well-educated and career-oriented as himself who also meets his admittedly snobbish criteria regarding class, and most of the time when he does they make better friends than marriage candidates. Cannot abide poor manners in or out of bed, and has corresponding expectations about proper condom use and prep (also PreP) and won’t hesitate to interrupt a makeout session with a lecture on not fingering him when he just ate an hour ago and he hasn’t had the chance to use an enema yet. Jock types do little for him, although he does have this one celebrity crush of that sort that he holds dear to his heart precisely because it will never, ever happen (although, he does happen to move in adjacent circles....). 

Favored erotic tea time subjects: office sex, hustlers, the tea itself...not like that

Favored gift: his crush’s contact info, also measurements if he can get them

Raphael

His selfies come in two varieties, gym and food, and this perfectly sums him up as a person and a friend and sexual partner. Sociable but not particularly quick-witted, his conversations are filled with emojis and exclamation points and it’s not very long before he’s making invitations to hang out at either his favorite fitness center or one of his many favorite restaurants. Don’t expect much from the latter however, as he favors quantity over quality. Is more or less the perfect boyfriend if you like them big and dumb, and on some level he knows this because he’s clearly comfortable with who he is and the goals he’s set for himself, both in body weight and in life in general. Even nicer, he likes skinny nerds just as much as he likes guys who can hold their own (or even surpass him) during workouts, and he’ll try just about anything once. Not the most skilled at topping or giving head or anything else that demands precision in action, but he’ll always give his best effort anyway. Besides, he makes a great bottom, with enough cushion and stamina to take a really hard pounding and jerk himself to completion in just about the time it takes for him to coax his partner to orgasm. A simple man with simple tastes and an insatiable appetite for food and pleasure and good company, and if it comes to it a sweet and devoted familial sort as well. Doesn’t have much of an imagination for kinks, but the person who shows him how to combine food with sex might be on the receiving end of a marriage proposal right then and there.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: sexy workouts, feeders, power bottoms

Favored gift: food, especially if you get into watching him eat it

Ignatz

Fucking an art student is always a unique experience, and he’s determined not to disappoint. More likely to share pictures of his latest projects than nudes up front, although he welcomes receiving them himself as he’s quick to explain that he draws his influence from all areas of his life. Has a particular fascination with the kind of unintentional eroticism found in certain religious art, which is more likely to be found quietly perplexing than offensive in hookup spaces. Is shy and relatively untested when it comes to sex, and as such he’s a natural fit for tops who love to break in new twinks. Said tops may have to put up with his request to sketch them in the bed or on his sofa afterwards though, because apparently the nude models in his classes just can’t compare to the men who ten minutes prior had their dicks in him. As he gets older and acquires more familiarity with the medium he’ll start to gravitate more toward guys of a similar age and disposition as himself, who can be subjects for his art without the constant demanding to get off. (They still get off with him of course, but he has trouble convincing the less understanding that that’s not his first priority.) Sometimes too he’ll just want someone to cuddle with and tell him that he’s good at what he does and isn’t making any questionable life choices. However, with art being the uncertain career that it is he may find himself one day having to reconcile himself to a sugar daddy to spare him from a mind-numbing day job - or worse, admitting to whatever disapproving relation(s) he’s got that he screwed up his professional prospects and isn’t doing so hot in the dating scene either. Never quite loses his mawkishness in bed, but hopefully he’ll get past his public anxieties with a bit more success. Is not really into the gym bunny types, although they love him to death and he has to admit that all that toned musculature is easy to work with. Keeps the glasses on during sex, or at least until he has an accident with them.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: artistic nudes, sexy statuary, missionary (he likes to watch the top)

Favored gift: a set of professionally done nude selfies, for modeling

Alois

A loving and devoted husband and father, he’s only in the app space because a friend made a joke about them and he just had to check it out. Utterly clueless on the terminology and the rules of etiquette, such as they are, for a place where it’s considered perfectly acceptable to begin conversation with a picture of your erect cock. Needless to say he completely misunderstands the term “daddy” in this context, thinking it naturally applied to him without being aware of all the horny twinks that would be hitting him up as a result. Will eventually be prodded, laughing and blushing the whole time, into taking and sharing some mildly saucy selfies, and the boys go wild for his literal dad bod and hair in just the right places (including on his face; the handlebar variation is a few decades out of date, but that just makes him more endearing in a dorky retro way). It’s not clear initially whether he’s even attracted to men, but after a few months of chatting and swapping pics and perhaps furtively jerking off to the ones he gets he might agree to a discreet encounter or two. Well, they would be discreet if he weren’t always so loud, and if he didn’t always resist everyone’s immediate impulse to shove a dick in his mouth just to get him to shut up by coming up with yet another dumb joke. Doesn’t get much further than the idea of oral anyway, as he’s not the most sexual guy to start with and he can’t quite get past the immature giggling over ass play. Not a bad jerkoff buddy when it’s all said and done provided you can stand all the puns, nor is he all that bad to look at or cuddle with afterwards once he figures out that guys like his hugs too. One can only wonder what his wife thinks of all this.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: (bad) sex jokes, porn, glory holes

Favored gift: links to daddy porn, so he’ll finally figure it out

Cyril

Born into a rough background and forced to get by in some difficult circumstances has left him hardworking to a fault - emphasis on “fault.” His greatest act of teenage rebellion was to be aggressively not rebellious, and he still hasn’t grown out of that mentality as he’s quick to scorn his more carefree and hedonistic peers and wouldn’t even be on the apps at all were he not so privately, guiltily horny all the time. As may be expected this mentality wins him few admirers and even fewer friends, of any age, the more so because he’s inexperienced and still figuring out exactly what he wants from a sexual encounter. Will bottom but has a complex about the implications, but unfortunately most of the guys willing to hook up with him are tops and expect to get it in at least for a little while. Manages better when it comes to swapping head, having experimented with his more adventurous friends in school. His fastidiousness and unusually good eyesight lead him to subconsciously fixate on his partners’ minor bodily blemishes, and since pointing those out never goes over well he’s taking to prefer sex in the dark. He’s absolutely not looking for a daddy and is annoyed at the suggestion, just as much as he’s annoyed by guys who try to turn pillow talk into impromptu therapy sessions regarding his past. Will take a few more years and probably some time away at school to properly find his footing; there’s a no-nonsense if slightly insecure top buried under the fading twinkish exterior, and provided he learns out to mellow out a bit he could be quite popular one day.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: circle jerks, docking, race play (which he feels guilty about)

Favored gift: a cock ring, for those size woes 

Balthus

He was on the wrestling team in school and acquired a notable reputation for his strength and skill in a brawl, although it was also at this time that he realized he was getting hard every time he would throw down with another guy. Deflects this with an exaggerated womanizing demeanor and a blank profile announcing only that he’s looking and saving even the headless torso shot - impressive though that shot is - for messaging. Gets handjobs and blowjobs and occasionally tops, all NSA and very discreet, but his internalized insecurities fortunately do not extend to his partners. This is probably because his preferred types are either closeted muscle bros like himself or self-confident young bottoms with no patience to take anything from him except a hard fuck and a thick load. His awkward younger days will be long past him before he learns to open up to anything more than that, and even then it’s unlikely that he’ll be very relationship-minded. Has to be educated by more experienced partners on lube and prepping a bottom, and it’ll take a lot of drinks and a lot of convincing to get him to try eating ass (he will though, eventually). Bottoming himself is out of the question except perhaps with the most dedicated of vers guys, but put him on the mat with another total top and there are good odds that someone’s going to end up penetrated before it’s over. Speaking of odds, is terrible with money and not domestic in the slightest, but he’s got a rich family that he can theoretically fall back on in a pinch. Not really boyfriend material, more like the ideal perpetually naked roommate with wandering eyes and a boundless libido.

Favored erotic tea time subjects: erotic wrestling, dirty talk, praise kink

Favored gift: a harness and matching jockstrap, he’s got a thing for gear

[talesfromthesnogbox]

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Summary: Richie and his fiance Eddie rush to get to the hospital because their very good friend, and surrogate mother, Beverly, is in labour, and Oh my god it's happening quickly!

Rating: T (for language and mentions of medical procedures)

Word Count: 4235

Notes: Is this a repost of my own work? Yes. Do I care? No :)

Alright guys, so this is totally self-indulgent, and it basically goes like "Crying Richie and Eddie doing skin to skin with their newborn baby." So here it is. Please note, I know barely anything about pregnancy or birth or surrogacy so I guessed a lot and nothing is accurate, but does anyone really care?

aO3

***

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Eddie was a light sleeper. He had no problem waking up when Richie got home from late night gigs, and he was always up within the first chime of his alarm in the morning. But recently, Eddie had taken to sleeping like a baby.

A sharp ring pulled him out of his gentle slumber. He’d been having a pleasant dream, one he was annoyed to be woken up from by what was probably a wrong number. Eddie grumbled looking at his phone, startled by how bright it was momentarily, but soon his annoyance turned to panic.

10 Missed Calls from Ben Hanscom

“Shit…” Eddie mumbled, quickly calling him back. “Dude—”

“Eddie I’ e been calling you for an hour, what the fuck man?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I just… I fell asleep.”

“Richie isn’t picking up either, is he with you?”

Eddie sat up in bed, Richie’s side still empty. “No man, he’s doing some radio show thing tonight, he probably doesn’t have his phone on him. Is everything okay?”

“No… not really. I mean yes, everything’s fine technically, but… but Bev…”

“Shit, what happened, is she okay? How’s her vitals?”

“No, no, nothing bad, it’s just… Eddie, it’s go time.”

“Alright listeners, it’s almost time for Richie Trashmouth Tozier to sign off for the night. We’ve got time for one last call.”

Richie drummed his fingers on the table, adjusting his headphones.

“And it sounds like we’ve got Eddie calling in from Newport Beach.” Rocky, the host shot Richie a look, eyebrows raised. “Eddie, what’s your question for Trashmouth?”

“Hey Rich—”

“Is that Eddie Spaghetti I hear? Hey man, what’s up?” A smile overtook Richie’s face quickly at the sound of his fiancé. He was out publicly now, but he hadn’t quite introduced Eddie to the world. They’d talked about it, but Richie was hesitant to drag Eddie out and open into his world.

“Ben’s been trying to get a hold of yo—a hold of us.”

“Ben? What’s handsome Hanscom want with us?” Richie’s heart was racing.

“It’s Bev… babe, it’s go time.”

“Go time? It’s… oh my god it’s time? I didn’t think that was supposed to happen for another few weeks?”

“Her water just broke, they got to the hospital half an hour ago.” The room was silent for a moment. “Rich, this is happening now!”

Richie’s heart still pounded, but his nerves were hidden behind the giant giddy smile he sported.

“Oh my god Eds, it’s happening. I—I’ve just gotta sign off, but I’ll meet you at the hospital in 20?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the bags, I’ll meet you there.”

“I love you, drive safe.” Richie slipped out, missing the obvious shock on Rocky’s face.

“I love you too babe, I’ll see you soon.”

Richie’s expression was half nervous, half ecstatic.

“Well, well, well, Richie, I think before you actually sign off, you have some explaining to do.” Rocky smiled and looked towards Richie knowingly.

He chuckled nervously, a blush rising in his cheeks. “Umm, yeah. Th-that was Eddie. He’s a friend from back home that moved out here because we’re… well, he’s my um… he’s my fiancé.”

“Trashmouth Tozier is gonna be tying the knot? Good for you man, that’s incredible!” Rocky clapped Richie on the back.

“Thanks Rocky, means a lot. But um, I really do have to sign off. Our good friend Bev is in labour, and um… well… we’re gonna be dads!”

“Woah! Dude, what are you still doing here? Go get your man! But you should come back and tell us all about Eddie and all about fatherhood when you’ve settled in a bit. We’d all love to hear how it’s going.”

“Yeah, for sure! Well, thanks for having me on the show Rocky, I’m gonna go have a baby now.”

Rocky chuckled. “You heard it here first folks, Richie Tozier is ditching the Trashmouth to be a daddy.”

Richie ran into the hospital waiting room and immediately stormed the nurses’ station. “Hi, I’m Ri—”

“Richie!” Eddie ran in moments after him, arms full with an overnight bag, nursing pillow, diaper bag and a bouquet for Bev.

“Hey babe, let me grab that.” He took the pillow and diaper bag from his fiancé’s hands and kissed him lightly.

“You both must be here for Beverly. She’s down the hall in 407.”

“Thank you!” Richie called after the nurse as Eddie pulled him towards the room.

They quickly find room 407, and enter to find Bev moaning, gripping Ben tightly as he stroked her hair back and whispered sweet words in her ear. The two stopped dead in the doorway, watching as their friend rode out the contraction.

“Finally, you guys made it.” Ben said as the pained look on Bev’s face melted into a smile with the end of her contraction.

“Fuck both of you, I hope you’re happy with one kid, cause I’m done after this.” Bev hugged both Eddie and Richie, careful that he IV drip didn’t tangle.

“When do they give you the juice?”

“Yeah, you’ve got to be far enough along for the epidural by now.” Eddie walked around to check Bev’s charts, having no clue what any of it actually meant.

“That’s the problem, she’s too far along for a full epidural. They gave her a little something for the pain, but they think it’ll be over before the full thing even takes.”

“Shit, how far along are you?” Richie took Bev’s hand and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Seven and a half centimeters. It all moved way faster than I thought it would.” Beverly rubbed her belly lovingly.

Richie smiled and pressed a kiss to her head. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee, could be a long night.”

His mind wandered as he looked for the cafeteria, back to that first conversation all those years ago.

 July 1993

“I always wondered what it would be like to be pregnant.” Bev pulled her shirt up a little and rubbed her flat tummy. “Bill wants kids… but I don’t think I want them.” She said taking the joint from Richie. The two of them had gotten rather close since she’d started really dating Bill, close in a way that neither of them had ever been with anyone else.

 “I think I want kids. My mom is always going on about how good I am with my baby cousin, and the neighbor’s kids love me.”

 Beverly giggled. “Well I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl to settle down and procreate with.” Richie’s smile faltered. “What?”

 “N-nothing.” He took the joint back and took a long drag from it. “I-it’s just…” He felt Bev’s hand lovingly stroking his back, calming his shuddering breath. “I know I’m a math nerd not a science nerd, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get a dude pregnant.” His cheeks went red as the silence between them increased. “Bev, I’m gay.”

 Richie closed his eyes as he felt Bev’s arms wrap around him. “Rich, you can still have kids if you’re gay.”

 He looked to his friend, tears shining in his eyes. “You think?”

 “Of course.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “I just said I wanted to be pregnant but not a mother. You can turkey baste me if you want, I’ll have your kids.”

 Richie smiled and kissed her cheek. “I love you Bev.”

 “Love you too, Trashmouth.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “So… would I be wrong to say you have a crush on Eddie then?”

 His cheeks heat up. “Don’t wanna talk about it Ringwald.”

 When Richie arrived back at the room, Eddie was waiting outside. “The OB/GYN is in with Bev now, wanted to give them some privacy.”

Richie nodded, pulling Eddie into his side. “You ready for this, spaghetti?”

“Y-yeah.”

Richie’s head spun quickly to stare at his husband to be skeptically. Eddie’s eyes were trained on the ground. “You didn’t even fight me on the name. What’s wrong Eds? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

“No! No, I’m excited, but… what if I’m not a good dad? What if I can’t give her what she needs? What if I turn out to be just like my mother?”

“Eddie, that’s not gonna happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“It won’t, trust me. You’ll always have your feisty little teenage self, fighting for her on the inside. While your mom was a great lover, she was a real asshole, and I know you remember how shitty that was.”

“Fuck you, the wedding’s off.” Eddie flipped him off, but with a smile.

Richie kissed his cheek tenderly. “I love you too.”

 November 2002

“I can’t go home. I don’t think I can face her.”

 “Eds, chill out. So what, your mom knows you and Myra broke up, not a big deal.” Richie and Eddie had started renting a spacious 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn just a few months earlier.

 “But what if she told my mom the reason why we broke up?”

 “Long distance? Eds, a lot of people break up because they can’t handle distance. You got a job in New York, she didn’t want to move down here. That’s not something you’ll get criticized for at Thanksgiving dinner.”

 “We didn’t break up because of distance you fuckwit, we broke up because I’m gay.”

 Richie’s words died on his tongue. “Wait… what?” Eddie slumped onto the couch with his head in his hands. “Eddie, are you serious?”

 Eddie nodded. He just wanted to curl in a ball and die, not have this conversation.

 “Hey man, it’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

 “Easy for you to say, your parents threw a fucking party for you when you came out. My mother’s going to disown me.”

 “Would that really be such a bad thing?” Eddie looked up and shot Richie a look of fury. “Okay, okay, sorry, that was in bad taste. Look Eds, your mom is an asshole, you don’t need her.”

 “But she’s the only family I’ve got.”

 “Eddie, you know that’s not true. You’ve got the Losers, and you know Maggie and Went love you. And… and you’ve got me.”

 “Thanks Rich.”

 “I’m serious Eds, I’ll always be here. You don’t need her if she won’t accept who you are.”

 “I love you Richie.”

 Richie smiled and pulled Eddie in close. “I love you too Eds.”

 “No, Richie…” He pulled away so he could look at him properly. “I love you.”

Bev’s contractions slowed to a halt, and Richie was grateful for his coffee break as he looked over Ben and Eddie’s sleeping forms.

“Can you believe this is happening?” Bev asked Richie, lacing her fingers with his.

“It’s kinda surreal to tell you the truth. I was thinking about when I came out to you all those years ago, and if you would have told me then what we’re living through right now, I would have laughed in your face.”

She smiled. “I was so head over heels for Bill, I can’t believe I never even looked at Ben.”

“Dude you hit the jackpot. Who knew Ben would be the hot one, I always thought it would be me.” Beverly giggled as she chewed on her bits of ice. “I… Bev, you know I love Ben and all, but is he… god, is he okay with all this?”

 1 Year Earlier

 Richie’s jaw dropped. “Bev… you don’t…”

 Tears sprung to her eyes. “Sweetie, I know I don’t have to, but you want a baby, and I want to help you two.”

 Richie and Eddie had just announced their engagement a few months prior, and had dropped on their friends that they’d started looking into adoption. Beverly couldn’t help but think back to the conversation they’d had all those years earlier.

 “But… but what about you two. I-I can’t help but feel like we’re taking something away from you.”

 “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. We decided years ago that we don’t want a family, and we’re very much at peace with that.” Ben put his arm around Bev and continued. “Richie, I know how close you and Beverly are, and when she brought up that she wanted to do this, I knew that this was the right thing to do.”

 “Only if you want to. Think it over; I’d be honored to carry your child, but only if you’re both comfortable with it.”

“He’s more than okay with it Richie. Trust me, he’s really excited for you. I’m really excited for you.” He knew she was telling him the truth. Bev and Ben went crazy helping Richie and Eddie set up a nursery, baby-proofing their house, buying toys and outfits for their new arrival.

“You’re just excited you won’t have to change diapers.”

She giggled. “Shut up.” Her heart monitor sped up as she felt another contraction come on. “Oh fuck, fuck here it is again.”

Richie clammed up, but took her hand like he saw Ben do before, rubbing her shoulder lightly with his free hand. “You got this girl. You’re doing great Ringwald, I love you.”

Beverly giggled, coming away from her contraction, letting her grip on Richie’s hand loosen.

“Ahh, I see daddy finally made it.” Dr. Burke, Bev’s OB/GYN came in with a myriad of supplies.

“Yeah, both of them are here this time! The other one’s passed out unfortunately.” Richie gestured towards Eddie.

“That’s okay. Figured we’d need some of this stuff in another little bit.” The chipper woman smoothed her lab coat after placing some blankets in a hospital-grade bassinette. “Just came to take a little looksee at how mom’s doing.”

Richie sat up beside Bev again, anxiously awaiting Dr. Burke’s verdict.

“Well, all is looking pretty good. You’re just at 10 centimeters; you’ll probably feel ready to push any minute now.”

A shiver ran through Richie. They were so close to holding their baby in their arms. Eddie stirred from where he was asleep in his chair. “Eds, I’m gonna go call my parents real quick, I’ll be right back.”

He nodded, and Richie ducked out of the room.

It only took two rings for Richie’s mom to pick up. “Hey sweetie, is everything okay? It must be what, five in the morning down where you are?”

“Yeah, I know it’s early. I just—Bev’s in labour.”

Maggie gasped, and Richie could hear a muffled “what?” in the background from his father.

“Oh my goodness! How far along is she? Never mind, we’ve got everything packed, we’ll be on the next flight out to California.”

“Rich!” He turned around to see Eddie’s panicked face peering through the doorway. “They’re gonna have her start pushing soon, Bev wants you with her.”

Maggie gasped through the phone again. “Is that Eds? Give him my love, tell him I’ll see him this afternoon. Richie, I’d better let you go, if she’s pushing soon, then it won’t be long now. I’ll call you when we land. We’ll come straight to the hospital.”

Richie chuckled. “Okay, love you mom. Got any last minute tips?”

“No matter how many times the doctor says it, don’t look between her legs. You’ll never look at a vagina the same again.” Richie’s dad pipes up.

“Well it’s a good think I don’t make a habit of looking at vaginas anyways dad, but thanks, I’ll refrain from staring at my best friend pushing my child out of her bits. Love you guys, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Richie rushed back into the delivery room and took his place beside Bev again.

“How’s grandma and grandpa Tozier?”

“Oh you know, giving me advice that I really didn’t need.” He laughed and patted her hand.

“Went warned you not to look down there, didn’t he.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what he did.”

Bev giggled and laced her fingers with Ben’s.

“Jesus Marsh, never thought I’d see a woman in labour so happy.”

Eddie chimed in, joining Richie at her side. “Drugs finally kicked in, I think she’s a little loopy.”

“Hey, I’m about to push a watermelon out of my body, I think I’m allowed to be a bit loopy.” She huffed out with some difficulty, adjusting her position. “Shit, it’s definitely time.”

Suddenly, it was like the room sprung to action. Dr. Burke’s playful demeanor became slightly more serious as she and the nurses helped prop Bev up into a more comfortable position. Richie was handed a foot, Ben was handed the other, and Eddie took his spot near her head, a damp cloth in hand.

It was all a blur if Richie was being honest. A lot of yelling: words of encouragement from Dr. Burke, sweet nothings from Ben, shouts of effort and pain from Bev. And then suddenly, “Alright, here comes the head!”

Richie’s own curiosity got the better of him, and against his dad’s advice, he looked.

And promptly fainted.

“Richie!” Both Eddie and Bev screamed as they watched him go down. A nurse joined Eddie on the floor, cold towel in hand, helping him up as he was revived.

“Dude, what the fuck!” Eddie felt Richie’s neck, looking for a pulse as he blinked against the bright lights. His face was filled with worry and annoyance, but his tone had no bite to it.

“Why am I on the floor?”

“You’re okay, we see a lot of fathers fainting in the delivery room, nothing we haven’t already dealt with.” The nurse chuckled as she helped Richie up and into a chair, handing him a juice box.

He quickly chugged the juice and motioned to stand back up, but the nurse pushed him down. “It’s probably best you stay seated, just for a few more minutes.”

“B-but, the baby, Bev…”

“Don’t worry, you won’t miss much. The last baby I delivered, mom pushed for a full hour.”

“Jesus.” Richie sat back and swiped a hand over his face, tearing up. “Bev you’re a fucking superstar.”

“Love you too Rich, but I’ll love you more when I get this kid out of me.”

He chuckled, lacing his shaking fingers with Eddie’s.

“Babe, you okay? You went down pretty hard.” Eddie carded his fingers through Richie’s hair with his free hand.

“Don’t I always go down pretty hard?”

“I fucking hate you.” Eddie kissed the crown of his head. “I’m serious, how are you feeling? Do you feel light headed? Do you need something to eat? Does your head hurt?”

“I’m okay. I just saw something that no human being should ever have to see. I think I became more of a feminist today, fuck.” Eddie chuckled. “Dr. Burke, top marks to you and your iron stomach.”

She giggled and gave him a thumbs up.

Eddie took Richie’s spot, taking Bev’s foot in hand, while Richie scooted forward in his chair to take her hand.

It seemed to go on forever, each minute stretched out longer than they’d ever experienced, but before long, a gentle cry was heard from the end of the table.

Bev’s face melted, a cry of relief left her lips as she slumped back against the bed. Richie wanted to support his friend, but couldn’t help but look towards the small screaming human in Dr. Burke’s arms. Once he laid eyes on her, he couldn’t tear them away.

His eyes misted over, and he couldn’t even bother to move his glasses away from his face to wipe them.

“She’s beautiful.” He heard Eddie sigh beside him, his voice sounding watery.

“Would you like to cut the cord?” A nurse pointed a pair of scissors towards the two of them, and Eddie nodded, taking them in hand. Richie’s hands shook as one of his covered both of Eddie’s, and the cord was cut.

Eddie pulled Richie into a tight hug as their daughter was brought away to get cleaned up. “I can’t believe she’s here.”

The nurse hesitated between the two couples before heading over to Eddie and Richie. Richie stepped aside so Eddie could take their daughter first, his hands still shaking ever so slightly.

“Richie, why don’t you pop your shirt off?” Dr. Burke approached him.

“Why doc, you trying to get a piece of this?” The joke was weak, but she laughed anyways.

“Skin to skin contact Richie, so you can properly bond with her.”

“Right, we talked about this at one of Bev’s appointments.” He nodded, pulling his t-shirt over his head. “The tossing a baseball around and letting her eat ice cream for dinner when Papa’s not around doesn’t come till later. See, I remember shit.”

She and Eddie giggled as Eddie passed their baby over to Richie. She was warm in his arms, her small breaths hitting his chest, rustling the tufts of hair there, and she was so, so tiny. For the millionth time that day, Richie was crying.

“Hi there, I’m your daddy. Holy shit you’re so tiny!” His hand covered most of her little back, it was nothing for him to rub the soft, pink skin, worried his rough fingers would hurt her.

Bev was giggling through her tears, and ben snapped photos of the tender moment. “Do you guys have a name for her?”

Eddie nodded. “We talked about it a lot, shockingly the one thing we actually easily agreed on.” Ben thought back to their fight about the nursery colour and chuckled. “We decided on Margaret Hannah Tozier. Maggie for short, after Richie’s mom, and Hannah because it kind of sounded like Hanscom… we wanted as much Marsh and Hanscom in her name as we could.” His voice cracked, seeing Ben tear up. “Ben, I know she’s not yours, but—”

Ben rushed forwards to hug him, cutting Eddie’s speech off. “Thanks man, that means a lot.”

“It’s beautiful.” Bev said as the nurses attended to her.

“We—we were actually hoping you guys would be her godparents.” Eddie asked them meekly.

“Of course, we’d be honored.”

Eventually, the nurses had to take Maggie away from Richie to take her measurements, but he’d made them promise to bring her right back. They all watched as Bev nursed her, whispering sweetly and pushing her beautiful dark hair back.

“Shit, can you believe this?” Eddie sat down beside his fiancé and took his hand. “Who would have thought out of everyone in the Losers club, us and Stan would have babies first?”

“I mean, Stan will always be the most responsible Loser. Even as teenagers I could have told you he’d be the first one to knock someone up on purpose.”

“What do you mean knock someone up on purpose, like plan for a child?” All four of them turned around to see Stan standing in the doorway, gift bag and flowers in hand. “Hey guys!”

“Hey, it’s Stan the Man!” Richie stood up and hugged his first friend, getting choked up at the sight of the little pink bag.

“This is for you guys, well more for the little lady, but she’s stuck relying on you two assholes until she can fend for herself.”

Eddie chuckled, carefully taking the tissue paper out of the bag and showing Richie the adorable little onesie in there.

“Patty knit her some stuff in there too. She’s been knitting sweaters for Sam like crazy, he’s growing like a weed, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re a year and a half old.”

“Aww, thanks dude, this is great.” Eddie clapped him on the back. “You’re officially our first visitor.”

“I knew I would be.”

The group laughed, unfortunately waking Maggie from where she’d fallen asleep against Bev.

“Hold on, I’ve got this great little trick, watch.” Richie stood and whipped off his t-shirt, careening towards the bed.

“Dude, I don’t know what your trick is, but I’m not so sure I want to see it.” Stan said, a smile overtaking his face.

Richie took Maggie in his arms, opening her tight swaddle and put her up to his chest. The feeling of his skin on hers immediately calmed her down.

“Shit, not even Sam was that responsive to skin to skin.”

“Yeah, it’s shocking, but he’s got a gift.” Eddie came up beside Richie and adjusted Maggie’s little hat. “She’s really taken with her daddy.” He stroked her little cheek with his finger, watching her fall asleep against Richie’s chest. Eddie’s eyes were drawn upwards at the sound of a loud sniff from his fiancé. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Richie shook his head, letting his tears fall.

Ben chuckled. “As you can see, Richie just has a lot of feelings.”

“Hey man, it’s been a long day. Trust me, I’ve been there.” Stan smiled, taking a seat beside Bev. “Good to see Richie’s still the emotional one.”

“Dude, let me take her, go blow your nose. You’re gonna get snot all over her.”

“Aaaand Eddie’s still neurotic.” Stan chuckled, shaking his head.

“Fuck man, you’re such a good dad.” Richie handed Maggie over to Eddie and ran to grab a tissue. “I love you so much, I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Can’t wait either dipshit.” Eddie turned to his friends as Richie left for the bathroom. “Oh my god, he’s gonna cry at her kindergarten graduation, isn’t he?”

Stan clapped him on the back. “Couple more months and he’s yours forever.”

“Fuck me.” He replied, sending his friends into a fit of laughter. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Cool, well thanks for sticking around for this complete and utter disaster. Drop a comment or a message or whatever if you liked it, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Just to clear a few things up, in my head, Richie was the "donor" because Eddie didn't want to pass on any potential illnesses.

I was also gonna add a line about Ben setting up Maggie and Sam in the future, but it didn't really fit anywhere, BUT it's a cute thought and also Stan and Richie being reluctant fathers of the groom/bride because that would mean they were actual family would kind of be hilarious? Anyways I'm kind of into that idea so stay tuned for a sequel? Drop a comment maybe and tell me if you'd want that?

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Okay, these are not expert/Hardcore Nerd opinions, but I’m so used to being surrounded by Star Wars and keep being surprised that other people aren’t, so...Some Kind Of Star Wars viewing guide for people who aren’t into Star Wars

STARting point:

Basically, if you like robots, aliens, and big space battles (and/or are a special effects or sci-fi design nerd), you’ll probably enjoy Star Wars.  If you don’t...the writing and acting quality varies from version to version, and between different movies in the same trilogy.  Star Wars is more a thing to enjoy because it’s fun, not to appreciate as high art (unless, again, you’re a nerd for special effects or design).

The original movie, aka Episode 4: A New Hope, is the best starting point because it sets up the central characters and conflict, is a lot of fun, and if nothing else you’ll get like 60% of the Star Wars references people make.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is also a lot of fun and could be watched as a standalone, but the plot can be hard to follow, and the other Prequel movies (Eps 2 & 3) are best viewed through the lens of “how does this inform the events of the Original Trilogy” since they’re kind of awkward, confusing, and depressing without that context.  Only start with 1: The Phantom Menace if you have some nostalgia for it.

Episode 7: The Force Awakens is also a lot of fun and has the added bonus of a more diverse cast, but it and its sequels heavily build on and reference the events of the Original Trilogy.  The basic plotline of “evil fascists VS people trying to stop them” is probably easy enough to follow, though, so you can probably start here if you’re okay with getting some Original Trilogy spoilers, but you’ll most likely want to watch The Original Trilogy before watching 8 or 9.

Rogue One and Solo take place before The Original Trilogy and can probably be viewed first if you like the cast or concept of either (Rogue One: “here are the people on the ground doing the hard work that sets up the other heroes’ victories,” Solo: “it’s a heist movie IN SPACE!”), but they’re fairly dark by comparison and some of the big reveals or other details might make more sense with the context of seeing the Original Trilogy first.

The Mandalorian takes place on the fringes of the Star Wars universe and barely references any events or characters from the rest of the franchise (and even then, neither the audience nor the main character are expected to know who or what they are), so you can start here if you don’t mind minor spoilers for who won the (Original Trilogy) war.

The Original Trilogy (4, 5 & 6, 1970s-80s)

Lots of fun, heavily referenced in pop culture, great designs and cool puppetry and other practical special effects.  These are the movies with Mark Hamill as Luke, Carrie Fisher as Leia, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo.  All of them are great and bring a lot of charisma and humanity to their performances.  4: A New Hope is the really iconic one and is mostly a fun adventure through space.  A lot of people love 5: The Empire Strikes Back because it’s darker and hate 6: The Return Of The Jedi because it’s sillier, but honestly, it comes down to personal preference.

Once you’ve seen The Original Trilogy, you can freely watch either of the other movie Trilogies.  Just watching 4 is enough to let you skip over to the standalone movies or the TV show The Mandalorian.

The Prequel Trilogy (1, 2 & 3, 1990s-2000s)

These are the movies with Ewan McGregor as young Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen as Anakin, and Natalie Portman as Padmé.  A lot of people shit on these for being “bad movies,” and yes the acting is often flat, the plots can be hard to follow (Original Trilogy is a simpler “bad government VS good rebels,” Prequel Trilogy has a lot of political manipulation and nuance but doesn’t explain it much), and a lot of it is watching people making decisions that you know from the Original Trilogy are going to turn out badly.  But I unironically love them, and they have really amazing design and special effect work (the CGI of course looks dated now, but it’s still phenomenal), and a lot of fun moments.  1: The Phantom Menace is another fun adventure through space, but with a lot of awkwardly racist alien caricatures who are thankfully played down or removed from the other movies.  2: Attack Of The Clones is a space adventure with an unfortunately uncomfortable romantic subplot, and 3: Revenge Of The Sith is relentlessly dark but I like the emotional drama of it.  Again, either you’ll think they’re fun or you won’t.

Like I said above, these are best watched after having seen the Original Trilogy, to inform the backstory and characters’ actions, VS being watched as standalone movies.

The Sequel Trilogy (7, 8 & 9, 2010s)

These are the movies with Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, Oscar Isaac as Poe, and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren.  Like with the Original Trilogy, all of them are great and bring a lot of fun and depth to their characters, and also 7: The Force Awakens is a fun space adventure, and people are divisive over 8 and 9, 8: The Last Jedi being darker and 9: The Rise Of Skywalker being lighter...but with the added meta-drama that 9 spends the entire time trying to undo or contradict things that happened in 8 (and an extra level of meta-grossness in that 9 seems to bow to things that Toxic White Guy fans hated about 8, like removing a major WOC character).  I personally prefer 8 because it’s a neat subversion on a lot of accepted lore and concepts from the Star Wars franchise and was disappointed in 9 as a result.  But once again it comes down to a matter of taste, and at the end of the day the main thing about Star Wars is fun dialogue and cool sci-fi stuff.

These should be watched after The Original Trilogy because they heavily build on and reference the events of it, though 7: The Force Awakens is a reasonable “First Star Wars movie” if this is the version you’re most interested in...just with inherent spoilers for The Original Trilogy.

Standalone Movies (Rogue One & Solo, 2010s)

Rogue One takes place immediately before The Original Trilogy but is darker and more of a heavy action-drama about people making difficult choices, with a good, largely-POC cast.  Solo also takes place before The Original Trilogy, though I feel it has some clunky writing (a droid character who’s reasonably upset about the literal enslavement of her own kind is treated as delusional and comic relief??) and also gets pretty dark with lots of character deaths, but it has the fun of being a heist movie with a conscience.

Like I said above, these can prrrrobably be watched without Original Trilogy context, but at least Rogue One is probably more rewarding if you’ve already seen 4: A New Hope.

The Mandalorian (TV show, 2020s)

This is the show with “armor guy and Baby Yoda” X’D  It’s basically a Western about a guy drifting from town to town across space and helping people with their problems...which mostly involve fighting and killing people.  As always, amazing designs and special effects, and I find the writing consistently compelling.  There are a lot of bonuses if you recognize a character, character design, or prop design from another Star Wars media, but since you don’t need to know them in order to understand the episode you’re watching, you may not even realize they’re references (which is the BEST way to do a reference).

This takes place immediately after The Original Trilogy, but you can watch this first if you don’t mind knowing who wins the war.  Though there are a few worldbuilding details (like being able to recognize the evil Empire’s uniforms or ships) that are probably a bit less confusing or a bit more rewarding if you've at least seen 4: A New Hope.

Other Media

I haven’t seen/read/etc much of any Star Wars except what’s listed above, so I can’t really offer any advice here.  But the CGI TV show The Clone Wars probably relies on you knowing the plot of Prequel Trilogy eps 1 and 2 (since it takes place between 2 and 3)...and if you’re jumping into some other Star Wars media and you can’t understand what’s going on, look at its copyright date and check what movies came out before it did, to gauge what you’d need to watch for context.  But all the movies only rely on knowledge of other movies, the other media are about fleshing out other aspects of the universe or things that happened between/before/after the movies.

Otherwise all I can say is that the Star Wars: Droids cartoon from 1985 is delightful and the few eps I’ve watched don’t require any Star Wars knowledge whatsoever.  (It’s long out-of-print but some kind soul put it on YouTube.)

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2015

This is the last list that was kind of difficult to do and where some cuts had to be made. The next four ones weren’t very good years music-wise and generally speaking.

Also there’s something that embarrasses me even more than Blue (Eiffel 65) somewhere on this top ten. Oops.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2015 was a bit calmer, apart from the fact I moved out of the appartment and bought one instead of renting one. This is still where I’m living nowadays, it’s not big but having no landlord is a LOT less stressful even if it will take a long time to pay the loan (one time the lock broke and I couldn’t get out and the landlord refused to fix it OR pay for a new lock if I decided to call someone to fix it ; another time someone who had a spare key opened the door while I was wearing a bathrobe and was like “oh. You’re here” and I was like “...I mean..... yeah.... 'cause I live here”). I also made new friends online that year and felt less isolated.

Sidenote, my first “flat” mp3 player’s battery died today but after a quick emergency operation I was able to save the data on it. I used that mp3 player from roughly 2008 to 2013 so that’s a relief, it kinda has sentimental value and I was still using it to listen to DW audios nowadays from time to time.

As you can see in the first picture, my super old portable cd player, which still works fine, by the way, is judging this little amateur so hard right now.

So! This is the year Faithless dropped Faithless 2.0, 21 Pilots dropped Blurryface, Mylène Farmer dropped the surprisingly quite good (for this point in her career) Interstellaires, and Carly Rae Jepsen dropped E MO TION, which would have been my favorite album of the year... if Nightwish hadn’t made the absolutely jawdropping Endless Forms Most Beautiful. A symphonic metal concept album about Earth and evolution and the place of humanity in the universe?? Excuse me? Who’s read my christmas list? My favorite songs on it are Alpenglow, Shudder Before The Beautiful, the title track, Edema Ruh which has the best intro, and of course The Greatest Show On Earth, which is an incredibly ambitious, kinda bloated and quite pretentious (in a good way) song about the history of Earth, looking back from a future where mankind is extinct and concluding “we were here”, and holy shit I get emotional every time, and it’s 24 minutes long, and I still never get bored when I relisten to it. Just amazing.

As far as unelligible songs that piss me off go, it’s all Carly Rae Jepsen: I Really Like You, and especially Run Away With Me. If they had been elligible, that last one would be my #1, definitely.

Here’s some... uh, a lot of honorable mentions, actually.

Budapest (George Ezra) and Chandelier (Sia) - Still elligible, still not on the list.

Cheerleader (OMI) - I have no idea why people dislike this song.

Ex’s and Oh’s (Elle King) - This is one of these songs that would be higher on the list if I had better taste. I still like it a lot though.

FourFiveSeconds (Rihanna, Kanye West, Paul McCartney) - Ditto.

You Know You Like It (DJ Snake) - Great drop. The rest is meh.

Miracle (Julian Perretta) - The opposite of the previous one ; a fantastic song let down by its drop.

Uma Thurman (Fall Out Boy) - This song makes absolutely no sense but it’s a lot of fun nonetheless.

Lean On (Major Lazer) - Super overplayed but holy shit this is incredibly catchy. The bridge is especially great.

Want to want me (Jason Derulo) - If this guy had that kind of song in him why does he suck most of the time. What happened.

Hundred Miles (Yazz) - Nice earworm that never got annoying.

Are you with me (Lost frequencies) - Basically a less good version of Waves from the previous year. This is a compliment.

Ain’t Nobody (Felix Jaehn) - And this is the less good version of Rather Be from the previous year. This is also a compliment.

Laissez Passer (Maître Gims) - When I started to check French hit songs from years where I basically wasn’t listening to the general local radio anymore, some friends told me they were grabbing popcorn and waiting for me to start hating some specific acts. Maître Gims was one of them. To their disappointment, I love just about every non-love, non-breakup hit song he’s ever made. Oops.

Love Me Harder (Ariana Grande & The Weeknd) - It took me ages to like The Weeknd but this song helped a lot. This just sounds fantastic regardless of the content (just saying this because I have a tendency to dislike stuff like that). He isn’t even the best singer of the two on this track, wow.

Millionnaire (Soprano) - In a worse year, this would make the list without question. The lyrics aren’t that original but still very good (love the line “remplis-moi les poches d’espoir” (fill my pockets with hope)) and the melody is just beautiful.

On écrit sur les murs (Kids United) - If you recall I put the original version of this on my 1990 list because I liked the Kids United version a lot and also had nothing else to put at the 10th spot on the 1990 list. The fact that I don’t even have enough space for the better version on this list says a lot about how abysmal 1990 was, music-wise.

And now, the actual list!

10 - Centuries (Fall Out Boy)

US: #43 / FR: Not on the list

Why are these guys still on my lists.

No, seriously. Why. This is yet another song that would be better if it was faster. And the sample is badly used. So I have no idea why it works. One of these days I’ll have to reevaluate Fall Out Boy’s entire discography, take a good look at myself, and admit I possibly like this band and that I’ve been lying to myself for like 15 years... but today is not that day.

9 - Sapés Comme Jamais (Maître Gims)

US: Not on the list / FR: #10

Told you I liked Maître Gims!

Listen. It’s not my place to comment on the ethics of the whole La Sape movement (which can be summarised as “modern black dandies trying to get the most expensive & beautiful clothes possible”) but you have to admit it’s super cool to have a more energetic and fun version of Suit And Tie. God, that beat. And it’s a ton of fun to sing along with the chorus! And it’s such a convincing song when it’s combined with the music video, you kinda want to look as cool and confident as these guys.

Also quick shoutout to the Sapeuses. Absolute legends & queens, every last one of them.

8 - Style (Taylor Swift)

US: #29 / FR: Not on the list

That year my s.o went to a party I didn’t want to go to and came back home completely drunk & way too late, crashed on the couch and started to ramble about how “Style” by Taylor Swift had a better sound mixing than the entirety of Epica’s latest album at the time and how amazing it was. For like half an hour.

I completely agree, just to clarify.

7 - Cool For The Summer (Demi Lovato)

US: #53 / FR: Not on the list

In what is possibly the least controversial opinion on this entire list: I love Cool For The Summer, the melody is great, the lyrics are good, the singing is the best, and you all know that and you all love this song, so yeah. Moving on to-

Oh god here comes #6. Oh shit. Oh no.

Can’t we just skip it and pretend-

6 - Animals (Maroon 5)

US: #46 / FR: Not on the list

So. I.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

How can I justify this bullshit.

The truth is: I can’t. Not really. I’m not even entirely sure what happened here. I hate this band and have always hated them, from the start. The lyrics are painfully stupid. The singing is as atrocious as ever. The “AWOOOOO” bit on the bridge is absolutely ridiculous. None of Levine’s “oh look at me I’m so dangerous” act remotely works. There isn’t a single thing I find competent here apart from the melody. I mean it. I’m not saying any of this to look cool. If I wanted to look cool, this certainly wouldn’t be on the list.

But you know what, the sheer incompetence on display here may be exactly why I like it. If it was a credible serial killer song written like an upbeat pop song, it would be disturbing and unlistenable. But the way it’s made, it simply sounds stupid, so you keep imagining some sort of inoffensive nerd pretending he’s a horrible monster (and failing) whenever you hear it. And that, I think, is what pushes it squarely into the “so bad it’s f█cking fantastic” territory, where it joins Butterfly from my 2001 list.

That sounds about right.

5 - Adventure of a Lifetime (Coldplay)

US: Not on the list / FR: #29

I haven’t mentioned A Head Full of Dreams in that year’s albums, because it came out at the very end of 2015 so I mostly consider it to be a 2016 album. It’s not as good as Mylo Xyloto, and not as consistant as Ghost Stories, but it contains some real gems. Adventure of a Lifetime isn’t nearly my favorite song on it, and I still put it super high here. I love the lyrics in particular (”under this pressure, under this weight, we are diamonds taking shape” oh damn) but the song itself just makes you want to move. I literally can’t listen to it without at least moving my head in rhythm a little bit. It’s nearly as colorful as the album cover. And it’s a joy to sing along the “woooohooooo”s!

4 - Stolen Car (Mylène Farmer & Sting)

US: Not on the list / FR: #61

This is Stolen Car (Take Me Dancing), from Sting (2004), rewritten as a half English half French duet where it’s unclear if the female singer is the imaginary lover or the car in the story. You might want to re-read that sentence.

What did I say on a previous list? Ah yes, “I see a duet between two singers I like and I die instantly”. This is also the last time Mylène Farmer is going to appear on one of my lists. I could say “self care”, but I genuinely don’t like any of her more recent hits, at all. Whatever. She’s been on these lists since the very first one (1988) anyway.

It’s been a wild ride, to say the least.

3 - Shut Up And Dance (Walk the Moon)

US: #6 / FR: Not on the list

And for the second least controversial opinion on this list: despite the massive overplay, I never EVER got tired of this, it’s colorful, energetic, super fun, and it’s still on my mp3 player to this day. Just a fantastic song. And a great band! I wish One Foot had been elligible for a future list, it’s super good. Aw.

2 - Ego (Willy Williams)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69

This is a song about a guy who imagines himself as this super cool elegant dude, but when he looks at himself in the mirror he hates everything he’s seeing.

I know this isn’t supposed to be a song about gender dysphoria but my god is this shit relatable.

To make things even better, it’s served by creepy music box sounds ala The Birthday Massacre and by an untouchable, strange beat. It’s a dark, weird song, but it’s all kinds of wonderful and catchy as hell, and apparently I’m not the only one to think that considering the mindboggling number of views on the youtube music video. Watch it if you haven’t seen it, it’s hypnotic and makes the song even better.

I only discovered this song last year but I’ve listened to it so much since then I really debated if this should be at the #1 spot. It’s just... so horribly relatable.

But you know what’s even more relatable?

Being broke and sad and still trying to have the time of your life.

1 - Downtown (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis)

US: #84 / FR: Not on the list

Some people call this Thriftshop 2.0 but I think it’s even better than Thriftshop, which was, if you recall one of my previous lists, already pretty damn good in my opinion.

As you probably already know, it’s a song about a guy buying a moped and bragging about him and his friends, and their mopeds, and how cool they look when they ride downtown on their mopeds. I never owned a moped in my life. But I have a super small & shitty car which I love very much and so it’s very relatable. Also I’ve never written the word ‘moped’ so often in a single paragraph before in my life.

I love every single person who sings on this track. I love the music video. I’ve been trying to match the flow of the second verse ever since it came out and I still can’t do it with my shitty accent. It’s full of weird and corny lines, but that’s also why I love it so much. The dialogue at the beginning! “Dope, my crew is ill, and all we need is two good wheels”! “Head into the dealership and drop a stack and cop a Kawasaki, I'm stunting on everybody, hella raw, pass the wasabi”! “My seat is leather, alright, I'm lying, it's pleather / But girl, we could still ride together / You don't need an Uber, you don't need a cab / F█ck a bus pass, you got a moped man”!! “Cut the bullshit / Get off my mullet / Stone washed, so raw / Moped like a bullet - NYAOOOOOO”!! “Running around the whole town / Neighbors yelling at me like, "You need to slow down." / Going thirty-eight, Dan, chill the f█ck out / Mow your damn lawn and sit the hell down”!!! Oh shit, I basically quoted one third of the song. I just. Ugh. I love it so much, okay?

Cringe culture is dead and we peed on its grave. We spend enough time in our lives feeling miserable. Like what you like. Even if it’s super ridiculous. No: especially if it’s super ridiculous. Live a little, damn it.

Next up: The Year Everything Went Wrong Except Pop Music

[detectivesplotslies]

An Anthropologist and a Pianist walk into a School

Oumota Week 2019 - Day 2: Talent Swap / Monster AU 

Description: The Ultimate Anthropologist, Kaito Momota, wants to make quick work of getting to know everything about his classmates, but a certain Pianist seems to be making that troublesome.  Word Count: 1719

Read on AO3 here

“So, you’re a pianist? That’s quite a profession to get into, lots of glory and greatness in being a musician! Who would you say inspired you?”

Kaito barely wastes a moment after introducing himself and jumps straight into questions. He’s already had a long discussion with Kaede about her inventions and Rantaro about his organization, and Kokichi happens to be hovering when he finishes.

“You cut right to it, huh. Well of course the greats, Beethoven, Wagner, a bit of Handel gives you a good handle on it.”

“So you’re into classical stylings? Are they hard to learn? What about your teacher?” Kaito talks a mile a minute, quickly committing the names to memory. Sure music isn’t his expertise, but he knows the big names. Symphonies that inspired others, and ones inspired by others.

“Oh my teacher’s a real gem, but he’s so strict, there was one time I got one note wrong in Beethoven’s 10th Symphony, and he made me play the entire thing backwards from that note and THEN start over. My poor fingers!”

“Oh cool, you must be really skilled then! Sure must have been a pain, that’s crazy punishment for a mistake! Did it even sound good?” Kaito looks up, his face genuinely excited.

Kokichi pauses before grinning and continuing.

“...well of COURSE it still sounded good, I am the Ultimate Pianist after all.”

“With training like that, can you compose? Do you improvise? Or after that rigorous training are you forever bound to the classics? Would it feel wrong to play something modern, or do you like the jazz era too?”

“Wow Momota-chan, how dare you speak of jazz in my presence. I do not play that filth, only the best for my hands!”

“Ah… okay, well, then what made you keep at it? You’re inspired by the classics and your teacher was harsh, but there’s not much for those outside of concerts. Are those what you play for?”

“Silly Momota-chan, of course it’s about the audience. The audience is always who matters when you play music, because only they can hear what you really want to say with it! You really ask a lot of questions, ya know? Are you sure you’re an anthropologist and not Ultimate Journalist? Ultimate TV Show Host? Ultimate Cop? Hmmm?”

“Hey I know a thing or two about audiences, but I’m still an anthropologist, don’t you forget it! Been on lecturing tours at universities all over to show what I’ve put together. I bet those aren’t too different from touring concerts.”

Kokichi laughs and continues to poke. The interview devolves into defenses, Kaito’s illustrious experience and credentials taking the spotlight and questions forgotten. Soon enough they part and he’s off to interview another classmate. An anthropologist’s work is never done as long as there are people to learn from!

But that was hardly the end of what he heard from Ouma that day. You’d think a musician would be more considerate about the volume of their voice.

---

During lunch the elegant cosplayer approaches the pianist, poise exquisite. He seems to consider the boy’s clothes before posing a question.

“So, do you wear the classic tails and tie when you perform, Ouma-kun?”

“Oh yes all the classics. The tie, tails, knuckles, sonic-”

“I’m sorry the-”

“Gotta go fast, Shinguji-kun! You know that one right? Ever worn a mascot costume? Huh?”

After a moment of awkward silence to Ouma’s exclamations Korekiyo excused himself. Kaito, also in the dining hall figured that… could be a way he could show interest in the cosplaying talent. Maybe. But from his interview he knew mascots and simple designs were the farthest from what the cosplayer’s actual interest was.

---

During an argument about her tastes, it isn’t long before the artist tries to push back on the other art talent in the room, and prove herself more cultured.

“Well, I bet you don’t have any more recent musical influences hmm? All long dead men, who’s music is gathering dust. A real artist has to live in the now,” Tenko huffs.

“Oh but I love to stay current! Why just last month I attended a very inspiring concert.”

“Oh really? Tenko would like to know who!”

“Have you, my dear, heard the musical stylings of the Wiggles?”

The jazz hands are met with a nose thrust in the air as Tenko turns heel to leave. Kokichi calls something about artist temperaments after her, to which her heels in her exit from the courtyard clack a bit louder and angrier, like little daggers stabbing the pavement.

Possibly artistic differences? Competitive sort of field? Kaito isn’t sure he’s got a good enough grasp of Tenko’s stance on it all yet to judge.

---

This time the sound of a strange song with no tempo played obnoxiously that caught his attention, and the anthropologist stops in the doorway to look into a classroom.

“Why do you keep playing that thing? I thought you were a piano man, or something.”

To the astronaut who was pointing at the kazoo in his mouth, Kokichi holds it out with some flare.

“The kazoo, which we in the music industry like to call the tongue piano, is a very technical instrument to get right, but if you listen closely you can hear the nuances of a master, c’mon lean in.”

A sharp sound, a spray of spit and a string of profanities later, Miu storms out muttering about getting that key wiggling twink back while Kokichi laughs himself breathless. Kaito stumbles out of her way, his face pinched into a frown as he glances back at the classroom.

Perhaps this called for a follow-up interview.

---

Kaito returns from the library, fists clenched, looking around. Eventually he spots Kokichi, snapping his suspenders and chatting away at the magician, Shuichi, backed into the corner with something between fear and confusion on his face. His top hat is precariously close to tipping off his face while he pushes against the wall.

“Hey Ouma, I wanted to ask you some more questions!”

The pianist turns, tilting his head to the side, face blank for a moment before a cheshire grin spreads across it.

“Momota-chan! Of course, of course. Want to hear more from the master, couldn’t resist, I get it. Well I have plenty of time! Saihara-chan here won’t tell me the ritual he cast to get so powerful because I’m not a wizard like him! Maybe your interrogation will work!”

Kaito hesitates a moment. Wizard? Isn’t Shuichi a magician? “Ah, no I just have questions for you, not Saihara.”

That’s all it takes for Shuichi to take his chance to dart behind Kokichi and leave the room in a run. Neither of them have ever seen the kid move that fast. They are left alone.

“Right, so I just wanted to check a few things with you. You said Beethoven, Wagner, and Handel were your inspiration?”

“Why Momota-chan, were your ears taking a vacation? Yep! Those are my favourite piano composers! And I won’t repeat it again, so you better listen!”

“And when you messed up in Beethoven’s 10th Symphony your teacher made you play it backwards?”

Kokchi flutters his fingers in front of him dramatically. “Back and then front again, like a puppet!”

“And you despise jazz?”

Kokichi gags. “Won’t touch the stuff!”

Then without missing a beat, Kaito grins and asks a new question.

“So your entire interview with me was bullshit, huh?”

Kokichi scoffs and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “My, my, Momota-chan, what nerve you have to tell a musician he doesn’t know his own taste! Next I’ll be telling you about anthropology journals or whatever boring things you are inspired by!”

Kaito sighs and pulls a book out of his bag and flips it open, citing pages as he talks. “Wagner was a terrible pianist, and while he did write some pieces for the piano, apparently they pale in comparison to most other composers of his time. Beethoven only wrote 9 symphonies, so whether you can play one backwards or not you should have corrected the number when I repeated 10th back at you. And you say you dislike jazz but that’s the beat and style you’ve been playing on your kazoo all day.” He claps the book shut with a satisfied smirk on his face.

There’s silence between them for an uncomfortable moment, until Kokichi puts his arms back lazily behind his head and smiles.

“Wow, Momota-chan’s such a nerd.”

Kaito’s smirk drops and indignance rushes onto it, red and unready for its turn.

“Wh- No I’m not! How is finding out a liar nerdy? You’ve been messing with people all day I had to fact check, I-”

“Ohhh, not a nerd, my mistake, a stalker! Wow, I haven’t had one of those since that one time at one of my concerts when this guy grabbed me by my tails and-”

“Ouma, I don’t want to hear another story, I want to hear about you!” Kaito may have shouted it a touch louder than planned, as Kokichi’s tale about his tails abruptly cuts off.

“Why?”

“What? What do you mean ‘why’?”

“Momota-chan can ask questions, but he can’t answer them? Why don’t you want to hear a story. Stories are much more fun! Stories about hedgehogs, teachers, fun kid shows, wizards, and strange instruments. Why wouldn’t that be what anyone wants to hear? It only matters if you like what you hear, afterall.”

“I don’t care if it’s what I would like if it’s not about you. What’s the point in getting to know someone that way?”

“I don’t know, maybe you should tell me, you’re the one studying humans, and they tell some pretty stories when there’s nothing very pretty at all.”

Kokichi smirks and starts to walk out of the room. He’s almost out when Kaito says something to himself, quietly, but Kokichi’s trained ears hear it clearly.

“So you weren’t lying about that then.”

Kokichi turns, raising a brow. “What do you think was true, then, oh Ultimate Questioner?”

“That it’s all about the audience. You change your tune based on who’s listening, and if what you want them to hear? Then I wonder what your audience when you actually play is like.”

Kokichi frowns for a moment and continues walking out, no reply ready.

[end note]

Hope you guys enjoyed a taste of the dumb talent swap I’ve been nursing in headcanons for ages hahah <3 As a bonus, about their designs, some fun details. Kokichi tucks his hair behind his ears so he can better catch what people are saying quietly, and Kaito ended up wrecking his eyes and needing glasses from trying to read things in dark places on expeditions after dark or before the crew would set up. For @oumota-events week!

[ourimpavidheroine]

A scene that always sticks out to me would be when Wing is just on the floor, staring dumbstruck up at Nuo and Yumi just like someone go help him haha. And another would be Lin and Mako sitting at that lake and fishing, smoking their pipes. I dunno why but that one sticks with me. And one more would be Wu with Qi, scaring the shit out of Willow's husband in Chun's garden. Love it when Wu gets his king on!

Oh god, poor Wing. Chapter 2 of Dear Diary. That was a lot of fun to write!

"Are you a child?" she said, standing up on her tiptoes to throw another thwack to Tu's head. "And on His Majesty's brand new rug! Really!" She turned her gaze to Wei. "You must be one of the Beifong twins." Her tone said exactly how she felt about Beifong twins rolling about on my rug. (Hint: Not positively.)

"That one's Wei," said Huan mildly.

"On His Majesty's brand.new.rug," she repeated to Wei, who hung his head.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Wing hadn't moved. He was still staring up at her, mouth gaping open like a koi. Wei kicked him, none too gently. "What's wrong with you? Get up!"

"Guuuuh," replied Wing. Nuo frowned down at him and he moaned.

"That one's Wing," added Huan.

"I see," said Nuo, slowly. "Are you injured?"

Wing made a strangled noise.

"Do you need assistance?" Nuo raised an eyebrow.

Wing opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Oh dear.

"Oh now, that's one of the saddest things I've ever seen," said Yumi, shaking her head from her spot by the door. "Someone go and do something for that poor boy."

Mako shook his head back at her before getting up and grabbing Wing by his tunic, yanking him up. "Come on, big guy," he said, and walked him over to a chair, pushing him so that he sat down. Wing looked at Mako, who patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. "It happens that way sometimes," he said.

The Lin and Mako one is from Chapter 9 of The Further Tales of Lin Beifong. I felt like I owed the two of them their own time together and went back and forth how I could do it without being sentimental. I was playing my Hou-Ting family Sims game (yes, I really am that big of a nerd) and my Lin and Mako Sims just up and went fishing together and BOOM! I had it.

Once they'd finished their breakfast, the Chief picked up a pole. "You ever been fishing before?" At Mako's shake of his head, she opened up the basket and showed him how to bait the hook before explaining and then demonstrating how to cast the pole. "Soft and easy, no need to fling the damn thing," she said, and after a few false starts Mako got the hang of it. She showed him how to hold it. "You start to feel a tug on the line, you give it a sharp jerk to set the hook and then start reeling it in. Net's there; I'll give you a hand since you're new at it and all." With that she cast her own pole and then sat down on her stool, surprising Mako to the core of his very being by pulling a pipe out of her jacket pocket and handing it over to him to light. At his look she shrugged. "Just a fishing thing." She pulled out another one and handed it to him without a word. Mako lit his up and sucked on it; the tobacco was unexpectedly sweet and smokey at the same time, far better tasting than the cigarettes he snuck behind Wu's back.

They sat there for a time, smoking their pipes and occasionally checking their hooks for bait. The morning air had a bit of a bite to it; it was chilly, but the air felt fresh and smelled divine. Mako was a city boy, through and through, but he thought, sitting there smoking that pipe, with the rising sun warm on his shoulders, that he'd never been anywhere more lovely or peaceful in his entire life.

The Chief tapped the ashes out of her pipe and then stowed it away. "I learned how to fish from Katara. Tenzin's mother, you know?" She smiled a little. "Aang was a vegetarian, of course, but Katara never had been and every once in awhile she'd sneak away and get a little fishing in. She'd taken Bumi with her once upon a time but he got older and joined the Navy and she used to take me after that."

They were silent for a time. The Chief put her pole between her clamped knees and poured herself a little tea, drinking it before shifting the pole back into her hands.

And yes, the scene in Lady Chun’s garden in Chapter 6 of A Song Of Spring And Autumn. I really wanted to show Wu’s brand of ruthlessness; I rewrote that scene a few times until it really felt right to me. (I also wanted to get across that the only reason Qi didn’t wholesale murder Willow right there was that they really liked Lady Chun and wouldn’t want to upset her. I think I managed.)

“Fuck His Majesty,” she sneered at me. “It’s just like you’ve said. No one needs anything from him. He’s just a liability at this point.”

Tsai went pale and started to sputter, his eyes bulging. “Your Majesty! I…I beg you, please…”

Qi was staring at Willow. I’d never seen that particular expression on Qi’s face before. It was a little frightening, Progeny. Qi is normally the calmest of people; I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have seen Qi anything but completely unruffled. That is just Qi’s nature. The way Qi was staring at Willow, however, made me wonder if Qi had ever actually used any of those knives on another person. I am not sure if Qi was even breathing; Qi was that still and that focused on her. I turned my gaze towards Chun’s home and started to speak.

“Do you know your history, Tsai? History was my favorite subject, as it happens. In fact, I read through most of the historical tomes we had at the palace in Ba Sing Se and I can promise you that was no small feat. The library was extensive.” I brushed an imaginary piece of lint off of my trousers. “How much do you know about Hou-Ting XVI?” I flicked a glance towards Tsai. He was staring back at me in a kind of horror.

“Oh, history. Delightful,” spat out Willow. “What’s next? How to suck off policemen?” Tsai gasped. I ignored Willow and continued.

“Well, it was some time ago and there were, after all, a great many Hou-Tings before I took the throne, so I’ll forgive you for not knowing who she was off the top of your head.” I gestured dismissively with my hand. “No need to get into great detail, but the salient part of her history I wish to draw your attention to is that she fell in love and married an earthbender.” I tsked. “Terrific scandal at the time, of course. What if children of the union should be benders? You can simply imagine how people reacted. So a small group of nobles got together and decided to remedy the situation. Her husband was found dead one day not long after the wedding. He’d been poisoned.” I smiled. “Ah, nothing says Earth Kingdom nobility like a good poisoning! It’s one of the favored weapons, you know. In fact, that’s how my own father was done away with, although at the time it was widely put about that he accidentally choked to death.” I leaned over towards Tsai and whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t believe it. My great-aunt had him killed, compliments of the Dai Li.” I sat back up. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. Back to Hou-Ting XVI. She was, by all accounts, very distraught about the death of her husband. She abdicated, ensuring that her younger brother, Hou-Ting XVII, took the throne in her place. She left Ba Sing Se and disappeared. When asked, her brother told everyone that she had retired to a life of meditation and reflection.”

“Thrilling story,” said Willow, rolling her eyes.

“Oh no, that’s the tragic part. The thrilling part came later. You see, a series of accidents started happening to the families of the nobles who had plotted against her husband. A child who wandered away from her nanny, found drowned at the bottom of a well. A wife trampled in the street by out of control ostrich horses. An oldest son set upon by thieves, his throat cut. It wasn’t just immediate family, either. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins - entire families were slowly weeded out over the years. Never any of the nobles who had actually done the plotting, however. No, they were left alive. Of course they were.” I turned to look Tsai in the eyes and I smiled. It was most certainly not a nice smile. “They were meant to suffer. They were meant to see everything they had ever loved torn away from them, from the tiniest of babies to the oldest of grandmothers. These nobles, they finally went to her brother, Hou-Ting XVII, and begged him to help them, to somehow intervene on their behalf. He told them there was simply nothing he could do, that even a King cannot control fate. And then he told them that since they had no heirs, their lands and titles would be given to other families. They left the palace, nameless and destitute. Alone.”

Tsai was staring at me. I shrugged gracefully with one shoulder. “Mind you, no one ever saw Hou-Ting XVI again. So perhaps she really was living a life of meditation and reflection. It might have been just poor luck, hmm?”

“Your Majesty,” he whispered.

“Now of course these are civilized times we live in. I suppose if I wanted to show my displeasure I could threaten you with the untimely and public reveal of something faintly sordid, like the fact that you spend a great deal time at an establishment that caters to men of certain tastes.” I waggled my finger at him. “Not that I judge, mind you. After all, as has been clearly established, I do sordid things with a common policeman. What I don’t do, of course, is pay money to have commoners tie me up and beat me for sexual pleasure.” I glanced at Willow, who was staring at her husband, mouth open. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, Willow. After all, he’s not breaking any laws. The establishment itself is legal and pays its taxes. All on the up and up! After all, if you can’t satisfy him, then why begrudge him a little money for something that can?”

“You told me that the bruises were from training,” she said, and when he reached towards her she slapped at his hands, her face furious. “How could you? At that place? What will people say of you? What will people say of me?” She burst into tears before turning and running down the steps of the pavilion, back to the house.

“Secrets and lies,” I said sorrowfully. “They’ll ruin a marriage, you know. But never fear, dear Tsai.” He looked back at me, a stunned expression on his face. “Royalty does not engage in such squalid diversions as threats. Royalty certainly does not espouse blackmail.” I sniffed. “Nasty little thing, blackmail. Far beneath me, I assure you. No, I would never do that. That little tidbit will never go any further than this garden. You have my word.” I smiled at him. “My word as a prince of the house of Hou-Ting.” I let the smile drop, and I leaned towards him. “However, as a king? Well, I couldn’t guarantee what I might do as a king. Such fickle creatures, kings. They tend to think they can do anything they want to, kings. Not surprising, of course, seeing as they are above the law. Why, a king might even cut your wife’s filthy little tongue right out of her mouth for the insult she gave to the king’s consort and children, not to mention the king's dearest friend! No, it is probably best for everyone if I remain simply a Highness instead of a Majesty, don’t you agree?” I reached into my jacket and pulled a piece of paper from an inner pocket, holding it out to him. He automatically took it and unfolded it, looking down to read it. His face went even paler than before. I smiled at him again. “Perhaps you can convince your friends of the same. When you next meet, of course. Next week in Ba Sing Se, yes? At the suite at the Imperial Jade Hotel?”

“How…” he whispered, and I laughed. I was actually amused at that point, Progeny. It was a real laugh.

“Oh, come now! Tsai! Did you think I didn’t know? Did you really?”

“Your Maj-” He swallowed. “Your Highness. I apologize for any offense I may have -”

I cut him off with a hand wave. “Yes, yes, I know. Run on back to the house now, Tsai. This conversation no longer amuses me.” He bowed, deeply, and started to hurry away.

“Oh, but Tsai?”

He turned to look at me, his eyes haunted.

“The only reason we are even having this conversation is because of my love for Chun. I should genuinely hate to cause her a moment’s worth of pain for any reason whatsoever. That said, if you - or any of your friends - so much as touch a hair on any of my children’s precious heads, your lives will immediately be forfeit, without the benefit of conversation. Do I make myself entirely clear? I won’t say it again.”

He jerked out a nod and spun to make his way rapidly back towards the house. I closed my eyes. I sat for a few moments, simply breathing in the silence of the garden.

[grimelords]

My March playlist is finished! This one is slightly more diverse than usual, swinging all the way from vibraphone jazz to Bhad Bhabie to black metal so I’ve taken the liberty of actually sequencing it properly for you. So if you’ve got 3 hours you can listen to this straight through and be taken for a hell of a ride. No matter what you like I’m sure you’ll find something in here that you love.

Tahiti - Milt Jackson: For an unknown reason I had a big jazz vibraphone phase this month and when you're talking jazz vibraphone you're talking the Wizard Of The Vibes himself, Milt Jackson. I feel insane even having an opinion on this but it's a shame that some of the best vibraphone performances were made at a time when the actual recording technology wasn't really there, they all have this very thin quality that I think misses a lot of the great character of the instrument.

Detour - Bill Le Sage: Like compare this from 1971 to Wizard Of The Vibes from 1952, the sounds is miles warmer and gives so much more of the full range and detail of the instrument. I also listened to this song five times in a row when I first heard it, the central refrain is just so fuckin good. Like I said, big vibes vibe and who knows why.

Blowin' The Blues Away - Buddy Rich And His Sextet: Superhuman playing aside, it's unbelievable how good these drums sound. The whole first minute just feels like a tour of each specific drum and I absolutely revel in it. I feel like flute and vibes is a relatively rare combo so it's extremely nice to hear Sam Most and Mike Manieri go ham in tandem.

Yama Yama - Yamasuki Singers: A friend sent me this song that he's had stuck in his head for ten years ever since it was in a beer ad from the days when beer ads were incredible strange for complicated legal reasons about not showing people enjoying the product or something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORfkh0OojxY and this incredible song is apparently from a 1971 French concept album where a couple of guys wrote a bunch of psychedelic songs in Japanese for an unknown reason that later became a massive drum and bass breaks album, and one of the guys was Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk's dad! Music is crazy.

Alfonso Muskedunder - Todd Terje: I'm starting a petition to get Todd Terje to write the soundtrack for the next Mario Kart. I absolutely love this song and this whole album because it's so joyful and strange and it just sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. He seem to truly operate in a world entirely of his own.

Pala - Roland Tings: I love this song. It's like he wrote it with normal sounds and then went back and replaced every instrument with the party version. This song hands you a coconut and says welcome to the island where bad vibes are punishable by firing squad.

Keygen 13 - Haze Edit - Dubmood: There's a fucking album of keygen music on spotify and it's absolutely great and so good that someone's doing the work to recognize the value of the music this extremely weird scene produced and preserve it. If you don't know, back in the day when you pirated photoshop or whatever, you would download a license key generator which was a program made by extreme nerds who had cracked the license key algorithm to give you a fake one, and for unknown reasons they would make the keygen program play original chiptune music that someone in their nerd crew would compose. Who knows why but god bless them.

My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix) - Feist: The very concept of a Boys Noize remix of My Moon My Man is hilarious and it turns out it sounds absolutely amazing as well. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Low Blows - Meg Mac: I had a big Meg Mac phase this month too, listened to her album a lot and it's extremely solid. Great timing too cause her new one comes out in a month or so too. I really am excited to hear her next album because she's so good but I've always got this feeling that she hasn't reached her full potential yet, she's only going to get a million times better in an album or two.

Patience - Tame Impala: I love that the cover of this single is a pic of congas because it feels like that's the central thesis here. Kevin Parker bought some congas and is making disco Tame Impala now and I really couldn't be happier about it.

Unconditional (feat. Kitten) - Touch Sensitive: I love a 90s throwback done with love. There's nothing cynical or ironic about this it's just fun as hell!

Last Hurrah - Bebe Rexha: Get a fucking load of this Bebe Rexha song that interpolates Buy U A Drank by T-Pain for the chorus! It's a testament to how good that song is that she's using the verse melody as the chorus. T-Pain will quite literally never get the respect he deserves. Also this song goes for 2.5 minutes. There's something happening where pop songwriting is getting more and more compact, completely trimming the fat and ornamentation and it's very interesting.

Hi Bich - Bad Bhabie: Also I'm fully six months late on Hi Bich but I'm of the opinion that it's extremely fucking good. A perfect little reaction gif of a song and it only goes for 1m45!

Friends - Flume: I'm doubling down on my thesis about emo rap from last month but this song literally sounds like a Flume remix of a Hawthorne Heights song. The whole melody of it, the overlapping yelled/clean vocals. The lyrics obviously. I don't know it's just very odd how close it is. A sort of emo trojan horse to trick people into thinking The Used are cool again. 

How To Build A Relationship (feat. JPEGMAFIA) - Flume: I've been meaning to check out JPEGMAFIA (AKA Buttermilk Jesus AKA DJ Half-Court Violation AKA Lil' World Cup) for a while but this is the song that convinced me. There's just so much to digest in this. Every line is gold and delivered with massive conviction even when he realises it's total nonsense like 'dont call me unless I gave you my number'.

Bells & Circles (feat. Iggy Pop) - Underworld: Underworld alive 2019?? I love this song becuase Iggy Pop has been riding a fine line between punk provocateur and old man yells at cloud for a while now and this song is the perfect mix of both. You can't hijack airplanes and redirect them to cuba anymore and as a result it's over for liberal democracies. Just yelling about air travel for six minutes and it's good.

Guns Blazing (Drums Of Death Pt. 1) - UNKLE: This beat is some of my favourite DJ Shadow work I think. The menacing organ bass throughout, and especially the distorted drum freakout near the end. It's just great all the way through.

Homo Deus IV - Deantoni Parks: Another Deantoni Parks track like I was raving about last month. This whole album is great and flows together as a single piece of work amazingly. I love the purposefully limited sample palette of each track forcing an evolving groove throughout. He absolutely wrings every bit of variation he can get out of every single sound he uses and once you get into the groove of it it's absolutely mind blowing.

Boredom - The Drones: I love that The Drones can write a song about joining ISIS that's also a lot of fun. Spelling out radicalization in a way anyone can understand and sympathise with and then switching it in the second verse to spell out how we got into this situation anyway. 

Loinclothing - Hunters And Collectors: I love how much this song sounds like a voodoo celebration in christian hell.

The Fun Machine Took A Shit And Died - Queens Of The Stone Age: There's a good bit on the live dvd they put out after Lullabies To Paralyze where they play this song and they say it was supposed to be on the album but somebody stole the master recordings from the studio, which is an incredible and brazen crime. Then when they put it out on Era Vulgaris as a bonus track Josh Homme said in an interview "The tapes got lost. Actually, they were just at another studio, but we falsely accused everyone in the world of theft" which is extremely funny. This is really one of their best songs and I sort of really with it had been on Lullabies because it fits perfectly between The Blood Is Love and Someone's In The Wolf type of vibes, I love how it just kind of keeps shifting ideas and riffs throughout. An absolute jam overflowing with ideas.

10AM Automatic - The Black Keys: This song is an all time great in my opinion. It's so straightforward and so effective. I wonder if we'll get a blues rock revival ever or if Jack White still being alive and bad is souring everyone on that idea. This song also has one of my favourite guitar sounds in history I think - the outrageously huge sounding solo that comes out of nowhere and swallows up the rest of the mix like a swirling black hole near the end.

Gamma Knife - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: I've never gotten much into King Gizzard and because of their one million albums already it's hard to know where to start but I've been listening to Nonagon Infinity a bit and it's great, it's just good old fashioned 70s prog jams front to back.

Gina Works At Hearts - DZ Deathrays: I absolutely love this song and I absolutely love the second guitar sound in the chorus of this song that sounds like it's made out of thin steel.

Black Brick - Deafheaven: When I saw Deafheaven the other month I was right up the front and it was a life changingly great experience AND they played this new song live for the first time before it went up everywhere like three hours later which was very exciting to be given a sclusie like that. After they finished a guy behind me whispered to his friend "Slayer..." which was very funny to me.

Gemini - Elder: I found this band because one of my Spotify Daily Mixes was all stoner metal for a while, which is a good genre to see all lined up because it'll have Weedeater, Bongripper AND Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats right there in a row for you. Anyway this album is extremely good, the very best kind of stoner metal where it's groovy and fun and has big meaty riffs and ripping big solos and it's extremely easy to listen to three times in a row.

The Paradise Gallows - Inter Arma: My big obsession the past little while has been Inter Arma ever since Stereogum posted The Atavist's Meridian from their new album. It is just so fucking good and I can't believe I've never heard of them before. You know when you find out about an amazing band and then you find out they've been around for nearly ten years and you can't believe everyone in your life has been selfishly hiding them from you?

The Atavist's Meridian - Inter Arma: I think a big part of my enjoyment of this band has also been that I discovered them at the same time as I'm listening to an audiobook of the complete Conan The Barbarian omnibus so I'm very much in the brain space for music that sounds like it would be nice to swing an axe to.

Untoward Evocation - Impetuous Ritual: I love how halfway through this kind of just turns into a big swirling mist of dark sounds. It feels so formless and dark that it could just shake apart and dissipate at any moment and you'd look down to realise your skin is gone.

Eagle On A Pole - Conor Oberst: from Genius: 'In an interview with MTV news, Oberst stated “We were on the bus one day and a friend of ours that travels with us and works for the band kind of came out from the back of the bus and said that first line: ‘Saw an eagle on a pole… I think it was an eagle.’ And then this guy Simon Joyner, who is a great songwriter from Omaha and one of my great friends, he was on tour with us and sitting there and he was like, ‘You know, that’s a great name for a song.’ We kind of had a contest where he wrote a song with that first line, and [then] I did, and a couple of our other friends. We kind of all played them for each other. Simon’s is better than mine, but it is a good line to start a song.” Another version–Mystic Valley Band drummer Jason Boesel’s interpretation–is on the next album, Outer South.' The idea that such a good song has such a braindead origin only makes me love it more.

Lake Marie - John Prine: When I saw John Prine the other month he played this song that I had never heard before and I had to look it up after and now I'm completely obsessed with it. It feels like falling asleep during a movie and missing a critical plot point so the rest doesn't make sense when you wake up but is thrilling nonetheless. Also he absolutely screamed "SHADOWS!!!" when he played it which was a fucking cool thing to see a 72 year old man do.

Little White Dove - Jenny Lewis: The drums on this whole album are absolutely huge for some reason and I love it. My favourite recent sound is in the first chorus where there's a funny little pitch correction noise as she sings 'dove'. It's very strange and very very good.

Locked Up - The Ocean Party: I only found out The Ocean Party existed as they announced their farewell show this month which is a real shame but I'm glad I got to hear of them at all because they're very good. A very good song about that feeling we all know and love: driving for a long long time.

Plain & Sane & Simple Melody - Ted Lucas: I found out about this song from Emma Ruth Rundle's Amoeba Records video and she makes a good point about this whole album sounding like something's gone wrong and it got accidentally pitched down slightly in the recording process. It's unclear if that's what happened or that's just how he sounds but it adds a very softly spooky undercurrent to a very nice song.​ 

listen here

[lewnatic]

For the D&D asks, 1-20

Oh gosh, okay. This is gonna be long so I’m gonna do it under a cut.

What was your favorite Nat 1 Experience?

I don’t think a lot of my characters have had really funny Nat1 moments, sadly. I will always remember the one when @zhixx​ made a goblin named Spook’em specifically designed to have the least survivability possible. The first time he was downed he rolled a Nat1 on his first death save. The feeling of comedic timing was just beautiful.

Favorite D&D Inside Joke?

“You are a privateer! BUT ON LAHND.”

Favorite Item Your Character received in D&D?

Phailyn was supposed to get a tome to increase his strength, but when his crush said she wanted it, he immediately fucking dropped it so she could have it. So the DM let me sneak off and get a scrying orb we’d passed up earlier. He hasn’t used it yet, but I just like the story behind it.

Ves probably considers Sikrikta to be the best item she’s received has a lot of really expensive shit she’s keeping just because she has bourgie taste. She got a bottle of wine as a gift that would have been 400g if she’d left it unopened. She’s drinking it gradually through the adventure. It’s good, but not quite as good as what she’s used to.

Teeki has a gaudy diamond crown that Bing bought for 300 gold. It does nothing. It is purely cosmetic. She loves it.

Basically I love frivolous shit.

Preferred Animal Companion (if you had any)?

Vesxlit has a familiar, if that counts. He’s a parrot named Brilliant. He talks like a normal human (in a setting where that is definitely not commonplace) and is a member of the Bardic College in the capital city of the nation we’re traveling in.

He’s a posh gentleman who helps Ves sew dresses. They spend 90% of their time arguing because, being a bird, his fashion sense is incredibly bright and garish.

Favorite D&D Battle Encounter?

Every boss fight Skaaren has done is goddamn awesome, tbh. My favorite is the first just because of how scary it was.

Keep in mind, we’re level 1 in Pathfinder, an Oracle (Ves) and a Barbarian (Cato.) We’ve just watched a big hole open up in the ground, and our characters don’t know why, but we’re looking for missing people (including the barbarian’s boyfriend Fabius, he’s important) so we figure hell, this is probably where they’re missing.

We find some of the missing people at the bottom of the hole, but we haven’t found Fabius, so we go deeper in. We find this creepy old woman doing some kinda ritual or something by a pool of water? Barbarian charges in to kill her and save his man, and… kills her very quickly.

Silence. We go to check on Fabius, and we’re not sure if we can safely move him. I’m running out of heals from earlier stuff and I pop my last one on him, and after a while of debating what to do a ton of undead start coming out of the water. Just a goddamn mob. Whatever the hell creepy-lady was doing, we were suddenly way in over our heads. Even if we picked up Fabius and ran, we don’t have a fast way out of this hole. And we start taking damage fast. Including Fabius.

I don’t remember the specifics of the fight. I think that’s a testament to how much we were panicking. I remember feeling the helplessness of being a mage completely out of spell slots frantically trying to hit things with my stupid mace.

And I remember when the fight was over, I stayed down there panicking for several more minutes, trying to determine if Fabius was even alive while the barbarian ran to get the local doctor in a town of which he didn’t even speak the language.

In the end, Fabius was okay, and we both got out of it alive. It was just that sense of dread and fear, that we didn’t know how the DM’s rolls were going or if anything we were trying had any impact. Skaaren has always done a stellar job since of bringing that sense of genuine fear into the game when he wants to, but that first unexpected taste of it was so damn cool.

Favorite D&D NPC Interaction?

Varis Vrynn was my favorite villain. Not because of his fight, or how he fit into the greater lore, but because of how @extravagantshoes​ played him. He was a slimy uppity elf in the city of Galthiel, a city with heavy class divides based on magic ability. Varis was a powerful diviner, and a lot of our party interactions involved everyone in the party trying to piss him off and Varis looking down his nose in disgust at all of us.

Then Cedlanna, our young sorcerer, got a conversation with him alone in his manor, where he wanted to make a deal with her. And she just ripped into him. Cut to the core of his insecurities and how with all of his riches on display, his manor still was incredibly empty–that for all the parties he hosted he was completely alone.

He was doing some really irredeemable things and later tried to kill us all but I still managed to feel kind of sad that we ended up gruesomely killing him.

Dumbest thing You & Your Party Did

Charging through multiple spinning saws comes to mind. Every time I try to sneak around in heavy plate armor also comes to mind.

I feel like I need to make a separate post to discuss just all the impulsive things Cato does. Turning an entire city upside down just for the chance to punch a specific guy in the face was one.

Most Epic thing You & Your Party Did

I might also make a separate post about this, but Cato and Ves convinced a bunch of lizard people that they were their gods.

Basically in this setting, the level 1 baddies generally fought are called Rapia. They’re kobold-esque in design, but they have a faith-based culture and… well, kind of a faith-based biology. Rapia need something to worship, they undergo gradual physiological changes based on the thing they follow. (Say it’s a sea creature, they might get gills.) And if they don’t have something to worship, they literally become sick and presumably die.

We’d fought a few before and looted crap from their caves, including a tiny hammer that we never could have used but the barbarian held onto cuz idk??

We later ran into some others by falling through the roof of their cave, but they didn’t attack us. They started to assume that we were the gods depicted on one of their cave walls. For the sake of brevity, a fight broke out later when we were trying to leave, and Cato gave the hammer to one of the rapia who was helping us escape. It turned out in the DM’s notes, this hammer had significance to the rapia, and was supposed to be given to the religious leader of a tribe. And so the entire tribe turned to our side and protected us. And… they started following us.

It was about this time that the DM broke character to tell us he had no plan of this happening, and I guess we just have a tribe of rapia now. And we’ve had the goddamn campaign balanced around having a tribe of rapia ever since.

What did you like about your Campaign’s World?

I’m gonna try to sum these up quickly cuz these stories have already gotten long.

The Ascension world has elements of what I affectionately like to call Pop Fantasy, there’s some genre-awareness while not being parody, and all the work on the pantheon Spi did has been goddamn amazing. I also cannot figure out the overarching mysteries and that is awesome.

Nejj puts a ton into immersing us into the world. I can always very clearly get a feel for the sort of setting he’s putting us in, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with the political intrigue he’s been setting up.

Skaaren’s got the weirdest goddamn races in his setting and I love every single one of them. He’s also packed the setting full of little cultural details, I swear to god he’s done extensive research into what we’re having for breakfast in the morning based on where we’re staying.

What was the most Interesting Lore you Found?

I seriously can’t pick a favorite here so I’m going to give a silly answer, and that’s that acolytes of Ves’s goddess commune with her by getting super high. 

Summarize Your Campaign(s) in a Single Sentence

One for each campaign:A group of weird rebels and one very ordinary guy dismantle the ruling government.Goblins discover crazy politics and necromancy, what happens next will warm your heart.Tourists getting intimate with the horrifying hidden truths of nature

Describe your whole Party Dynamic in a Sentence

The best bunch of weirdos and one stupid shady paladin.Loner rogue becomes Team Mom by sheer force of how much the other two hate each other.Bug Jesus and The Angriest Boy discover family in the form of lizards.

What Alignment do your characters lean towards?

I have a weird time choosing an alignment for characters cuz motivations change a lot for my nerds. Teeki was True Neutral but has become more Chaotic Good. Ves is Lawful Good I guess?? And Phai is a goddamn mess whose alignment has shifted at least thrice since his conception.

How do you tend to Take Notes (if you do)?

Badly! Next question.

Prefer Story/Plot Driven or No Plot/Character-Driven Campaigns?

I tend to prefer plot-driven, but I honestly think elements of both should be implemented in your narrative–occasionally giving breaks from the overarching plot to give the cast some time to dick around can give a breath of fresh air to roleplay.

Combat or Role Play?

Roleplay, of course. I actually used to think I hated D&D combat. It took a lot of great sessions to make me realize that the RP doesn’t stop for combat, and that’s when I started really getting into learning and enjoying mechanics elements.

Favorite D&D Monster/Creature?

Illithid. I would love to actually play as one someday.

Magic User or Fighter?

Magic is more engaging to me, personally, but I like both.

Preferred Weapon/Spell in D&D?

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. In large part because of how it’s roleplayed in Critical Role tbh. I also have felt the high of Sneak Attack enough times to really love it now.

What was your Favorite Nat 20 Experience?

One time I rolled a Nat20 perception while we were on the road and it was literally just to find a coin on the ground. That might always be my favorite. 

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (6)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

***

Ah this exchange... Despite the fact that you knew his name, you kept a cold-bloodedness that amused him. and your face when you faced him through the window...

“...ed...”

Your eyes so big that he could read your fear, the firm grip of your hand on the phone, those lips so thin and this skin so soft that he would love to …

“Jed! Hey Jed are you there? Hellooooo ? Jeddyyy ...”  

Melina's voice brought Danny out of his thoughts, making him blink several times while looking at her. it must be said that he did not stop that night coming home late enough and having slept just enough not to be tired. He stretched and put himself back in his seat, putting his glasses back in place.

“Sorry. What did you say?” He said rubbing his eyes.

“I said that we should find something about Hoggin’s computer in his office. Or in his desk. But it won't be easy to go into his office without attracting the attention of his gorillas. He paid the best in terms of bodyguards. You're really going to have to be careful not to get caught.” responds Melina by checking her notebook.  

“Yeah yeah...Sure.”  

“You look completely in the clouds since this morning. Are you sure everything's okay? Did you at least sleep?” ask Mattew worried.  

“Of course. Otherwise, I would be a real zombie with dark circles at the size of a balloon.” replied Jed with a little laugh.

“I'd say our little nerd is spending his night dreaming about someone. I don't know... A certain girl who runs the Nebula?” said Melina with a corner smile.  

“What? Come on... Don't start with that. I have already told you that I consider her as a good friend and a good neighbour. And it stops there. I'm too busy with the job to think about that.”

“Yes, well maybe you should think about your personal life more than your professional life. otherwise, you'll be a poor 50-year-old guy who lives with five cats. Look at Mattew he almost ended up like this if I hadn't convinced him to throw his feelings at Chris. How's he doing by the way?”  

“Hey! One, we already have 3 cats with Chris and maybe we'll have another and two ... He's fine. He's a little stressed out because of his mother's surgery. Although I try to reassure him that everything is going to be all right, he can't help but think of the worst. And we can't say his job makes things right for him. He's dealing with clients who are real assholes on the phone sometimes.” answers Mattew.

“Poor guy. I hope everything will be fine.” said Jed.

“Anyway, it's not halfway through your life that you're going to have to think about your love situation, Jed. So put the work-obsessed nerd aside a little bit and take care of yourself. You're far away, VERY far to be ugly.”

Danny rolls his eyes before refocusing on his work. But at the same time Mike landed both furious and worried before locking himself in his office. No one knew why he was in this state, but Danny might have an idea. Whispers were heard and Mike's colleagues Karen and Thomas chatted in their corner, a little out of sight. When they saw Melina's insistent gaze, telling them to come, they looked at each other, exchanged two three words, and then resigned themselves to getting closer to the trio.

“What happens to Mike? You threw his four truths in his face or what?” ask Melina.

“No... It’s just...You know Mike. He can be really upset for nothing sometimes. Answer shyly Karen.  

“Frankly, even I don't believe what you're saying here! Mike's been like this since last night. He received a threatening letter.” replied Thomas.

“Wow...how surprised I am! I'm surprised it happens to him when everyone here dreams of one thing: blowing his mouth.” said Melina ironically.

“it's not a letter from someone in the office... It's a letter from Ghostface.”

Jed doesn't react, but Danny made his most devilish smile. Once again, he was right and once again, he gloats inwardly imagining the face of that dear Mike as he read the letter. It must be said that what Danny had written... wasn't really very tender.  

But it had done him a great deal of good to let go of his anger and frustration in this letter, something he could and cannot do by being Jed. And the game doesn't end there. Oh no... Danny intends to make him suffer...until his last breath. But first, he has to kill McKellan. The hours went by and when the lunch break arrived, our trio went out to settle down at a small dinner in the area.

“Dude sometimes I wonder how you eat so much. You're not human, I'm telling you! Did you see the size of your burger? I'm sure if they did it in size XXL you would eat it without an eyebrow!” said Melina eating a French fry before noticing Jed lost in his though again. “Don’t worry, you’ll see her today. it's been a while since I want to go to the Nebula ... with everything I hear on it, I want to check for myself if her coffee and cakes are really better than old Joe's. I'm surprised that you offered her to come with us to the Hoggins reception. I wonder why...”

That's a question neither Jed nor Danny could answer. Why did he ask you to come? Certainly, to get to know you better, to get closer to you, like the spider approaching its prey ready to taste it starting with the bowels. But wasn't there another reason? A reason deeper, more obscure than either dared to admit. a reason more... Personal? Danny immediately chased this idea out of his mind, he did it for the only purpose of deciding if he would let you live, or not.

They left dinner after an hour, Mattew dragging his feet a little, completely full, his belly ready to explode. Melina made fun of him while Danny felt stuck by his colleague's remark. A little stalk tonight will clear his mind.  

As they entered the Nebula, they noticed that the room was practically full and that you were running around. But curiously we had no delays or any unscathed customers. As if having a little challenge or difficulty amused you even more than if everything was simple.

“Welcome to the Nebula! Where our pastries come from Outerspace!” you said before noticing Jed’s face. “Hey Jed! How are you? Are these two people with you?”

“A little tired but I’ll be fine. Yeah, this is Melina and Mattew, they want to check if what they say about your coffee is true. And yet I kept saying it.”

“Oh, you’re Jed’s colleagues and friends?? It's a real pleasure to finally meet you! Jed keeps telling me that his job would be boring if you weren't there. Settle in! I'll take care of you right away!” you replied with a bright smile.  

“Oh, yeah? I keep it very deep in my memory.” said Melina with smirk.

The trio sat at a free table at the bottom of the café against the glass. Mattew let go a sigh of relief, finally happy to be able to land and lay like a toad in his seat. Melina was seated next to him sneering at her colleague's position. Danny sighed as he shook his head. Not one to catch up with the other.  

You head to them with the notebook and pen in hand to take their order: A March cake and a Latte for Melina, a Neptune's pie and a Cappuccino for Mattew, and finally a Chocolate Jupiter's Thunder and a long coffee with sugar and cream for Jed. It only took you a few minutes to prepare their orders and bring them all to their tables. While smiling at them you leave at the counter you take care of two other customers.

“Young, your age I'd say maybe two years younger, pretty but not the kind to let herself walk on either. I think I'm beginning to understand why you invited him to accompany us to the reception.” laughs Melina before receiving a shot in the knee from Jed. “ouch! Okay that’s fair. Oh, shit I just realized that I'm going to need a proper outfit... I'll be surprised if they let us in with jeans and sneakers.”

“I don’t like the suits I feel like a penguin. But Chris must have one... we're doing the same size.” Respond Mattew.  

“I have one too. I needed to wear one when I was working as a journalist in Missouri.” Replied Jed.  

“By the way, what do you think of the Ghostface threat letter? I think it's crazy anyway. I wonder if Mike did anything to him in particular to get his attention.”

“He's an asshole, narcissistic, self-absorbed, violent, willing to do anything to get what he wants... Do you want me to keep going or is that enough for you?” Replied Melina.  

“Anyway, if he provoked Ghostface it's too bad for him. He will have looked for it. Sooner or later, you always reap what you sow.” continues Jed without empathy.

“Ghostface?” You said making them turn to you slightly surprised. “He attacked someone again?”

“He wrote a letter to one of our colleagues. and obviously it's not very pretty. Why, you're in trouble with him, too?” ask Mattew

“Well, he...He calls me last night. We talk a little and... he said to me that if I’m talking to the police, I’ll be his next victim. But for the moment he’ll spare me.” you answer slightly trembling.

“Why Didn't you come to see me? or call me? Things could have been different if I had been there.” Replied Jed worried while Danny held back a devilish smile.  

“I wanted to hang up but if I had done it, he would have killed you ... Sorry. I didn't want to bother you with that.”  

“Oh... I see. I'm the one who's sorry you did what you thought was right. But if it ever starts again... call me or come to my house. We can always talk about it.”

You smiled at him and after a few minutes the trio paid the bill and left your coffee. the rest of the day went quietly, Mike being locked in his office all day, no one had seen him even his colleagues. Danny went home doing two or three little things before leaving discreetly at night to do his second "work". He knew Mike's address by heart, having "politely" copied it from his notebook while searching Mike's office one day when Mike was not working.

He couldn't help but smile as he thought of you slightly trembling when talking about your little conversation with Ghostface. that's the kind of feeling, emotions Danny likes to see about his prey. This feeling of insecurity that he gives you without knowing that he is the author... Perfect. Maybe in the end he won't kill you. He will frighten you, remind you of his existence... but won't kill you. Just enough for you to trust only one person. Him.  

He parked in a rather secluded place, not far from Mike's house, his bag in hand to change into Ghostface and got out of the car. From there he entered the house. He was planning to leave a... little gift to Mike. A gift he doesn't intend to forget anytime soon.  

He placed the small package on the counter and took a bucket. a bucket filled with blood that he had hidden well. He stayed for a few minutes and once his masterpiece was completed, he took several pictures and returned to the car. He then saw him come out of his room and down the stairs. It's time to turn up the arterial tension of this dear Mike. With a disposable phone he dialled the number and while waiting for, a mean smile to appear on his face.

“Hello?” said Mike

“Hello Mikey... Did you like my letter?” respond Danny.

“You son of b***! Do you know where you can put your threats?? Do you think you're scaring me??”

“I conclude that you did not like my letter... I suspected it a little. I would have been more... Sincere. I have a little present for you. On the counter.”

“Go f*** yourself. If I caught you...”

“You're not nice. I give you a present and you don't even bother to open it? I'm disappointed in you.”

He then saw Mike walk to the counter and open the small package and back off both frightened and enraged.

“you... How did you get those pictures??? You... You broke into my house, you bastard!!!!” He replied

"and more than once. If these images arrived at your boss’s office ... That would be the end of your career. Though... You could still make a career in prison. You're good at lying. Oh, and I'm sorry about your walls. I put some blood on it.” respond Danny.  

Mike turned and saw the bloody inscriptions: Pedophile. Drug addict.  

“You only get what you deserve Mikey. And believe me... It's nothing compared to what awaits you. I intend to make you regret every moment of your life until your last breath. Did you want to be the star? Know that the only star in this city Mike... It’s ME. See you soon Mike... have a beautiful dream.” laughs Danny before hangs up the phone.  

His laughter got louder, more diabolical when he saw from his car, Mike throwing everything away. Seeing him explode with rage made Danny even more ecstatic. Killing him will be a real bloody pleasure because not only will he take revenge for all the blows he has taken, but he will also rid the country of a disguised plague of society.

He restarted the car with a demonic smile on his lips, ideas just as twisted as each other. He'd stalk you a little bit tonight, but he had another victim to watch tonight.

And his name was Horace McKellan. Death is getting closer Horace...  

And soon you’ll embrace her in such a painful agony...

But also, desirable.

***

(Done! I’ll hope you’ll enjoy it as always! And remember! If you got some questions just ask!  See ya! )  

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 53

Oy, finally I get around to posting this chapter on here. I feel like this one sucked my life essence away from me, but oh well it still has some really good moments to it so I digress. Either way, hope ya enjoy this massive nerd fest, filled with references to things I don’t understand as well as jokes making fun of all of us for reading/writing UF. Have fun!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/173944483439/universe-falls-chapter-51

Chapter 53: Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons

QVTA IEV NNE TLAIL, FHBXLL NNE WHZVX, GHXBR YHETX DSEFY BX MHMVR KYDE VYJAKW BCG WIIY ELY TAFX IA FAJH LYH XBNX T MWEE EMCP SHR HTL NWJ BFKFY

Though several days had passed since the portal’s opening had effectively raised the Mystery Shack and damaged it’s interior and exterior immensely, the tourist trap was still closed for repairs that were at last nearing their completion. Even so, its continued closure gave the Pines family a good enough excuse to take a day off and spend it however they pleased, which meant that it was being used for some proper rest and relaxation. Things that were more than welcome after the upheaval and drama of the past few days alone.

So Stan, Mabel, and Dipper had taken to hanging around the otherwise unoccupied gift shop, knowing that no business would be coming through it. While Dipper intently read journal 2 and Stan broadly leafed through the newspaper, Mabel lay sprawled on the floor, an empty bag of cheesy snacks by her side and the orange dust of their remains smeared across her face.

“I just ate an entire bag of Cheese Boodles without using my hands!” she announced with a wide, contented grin. “Lazy Tuesday, you are delivering in a big way! Almost makes me forget about all that crazy drama with the portal, and the Gems memories, and Sardonyx, and-” Mabel stopped short as she briefly glanced over at Dipper, who peered over the top of the journal to give her a staunch look of disapproval for even bringing such tension-ridden matters at all. Fortunately enough though, Stan didn’t bother to comment on any of them, despite the look of concern that briefly flashed across his face before he spoke up.

“Heh, yeah,” the conman reclined back in his seat with a casual enough smile. “Its nice to finally have a day where nothing interesting happens whatsoever.”

Of course, no sooner had Stan said this than the vending machine door leading to the portal room in the basement suddenly burst open. Ford boldly stepped out of it amidst the smoke pouring out around him, his manner fierce and resilient as he tried to subdue the small, strange, octopus like creature entangled around his wrist.

“Get down!” the author ordered above the startled gasps of his family members, especially as the creature launched itself off his arm. “Don’t let it taste human flesh!”

The kids were quick to comply, narrowly dodging the bizarre creature as it scurried around the gift shop frantically, angrily hissing all the while. “W-what is it?” Dipper asked as he climbed onto a chair, both alarmed and curious by such a strange sight.

“Can we keep it?” Mabel asked with a genuinely fascinated grin.

“Kill it! Kill it!” Stan shouted, swatting the monster with his newspaper as it skittered past him.

Ford paid none of them much mind as he deftly pursued the creature, electricity sparking from the futuristic gauntlet on his right hand as he finally managed to corner the beast. “Patience… and…” the author muttered, his movements slow and calculated as he made his approach on the still-growling monster. When it finally seemed like the monster was about to make a move, however, Ford countered it first, pouncing at the beast and easily shocking it into submission using his gauntlet. “Gotcha!” he proclaimed with a triumphant grin as he held the monster’s limp, tentacled form up for the others to see. “Haha! Now that I’m back in this dimension, I’ll have to thank Garnet for inspiring the design of the design of my electro-gauntlet. It works even better than I expected it to!”

“Great, now get that thing outta here,” Stan remarked with an impatient scowl as Ford passed him. “It smells like if death could barf.”

“Wait! Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper hurried up to the author with an eager smile, still holding onto journal 2. “Do you need any help with that? I’ve read all about these creatures in your journal and I think I know how to-”

“No!” Ford quickly interupted, his manner firm but fair as he addressed his nephew. “I’m sorry, Dipper, but the weird, dark road I travel, I’m afraid you cannot follow.” A beat of stark, rather ominous silence followed this, though the author was quick to break it a moment later with an upbeat smile as he retreated back into the basement. “Well, call me for dinner!”

“Oh, maybe next time then?” Dipper offered, though his smile quickly faltered as the vending machine closed up once more, Ford disappearing behind it. “O-or not. Or never…”

“Aw, Dipper, don’t take it so hard,” Mabel attempted to comfort her brother by placing a hand on his shoulder, only for Stan to callously interject.

“No, do take it hard!” the conman snapped coldly. “Take it hard and serious. My brother is a dangerous know-it-all, and the stuff he’s messing with is even worse. I’ve been pretty lenient about letting you kids hang around the Gems all summer, but Ford is where I draw the line. Do yourself a favor and stay away from him, ya hear me?”

“But Grunkle Stan,” Dipper protested intently, not about to let himself be deterred from asking Ford his abundance of accumulating questions any longer. “All summer long I’ve wanted to know who the author of the journals was. Now the guy lives in our basement and I can’t even talk to him. How is that fair?”

“Life’s not fair, kid,” Stan remarked, rolling his eyes. “Don’t worry about what’s in the basement. I’d say you saw more than enough of it the other day… A-anyway, you belong up here with me and Mabel.”

“Yeah! Besides, this Friday is the epic made-for-TV movie crossover event of the century,” Mabel smiled brightly as she held up the TV guide ad for said crossover. “Dogcopter Meets Ducktective! Steven’s coming over to watch it with us, we’re all gonna wear our official Dogcopter propeller hats, its gonna be great! It’ll be all the mystery and adventure you’ll need this week!”

“You bet it will be!” Stan remarked, just as eager for the special as his niece was. “For years we’ve been wanting to see that duck and that dog cross paths and now our dreams are finally about to come true! It better live up to our expectations or else I’ll… I, uh… huh. What do kids nowadays do when they wanna complain about something?”

“Usually they just do it online and make long whiny posts about how things didn’t turn out the way they wanted to and why the writers are wrong for not doing things their way,” Mabel noted with a shrug.

“Really? Geez, how pathetic.”

As Stan and Mabel continued commiserating over their excitement about the upcoming crossover, Dipper had all but checked out of the conversation entirely in favor of turning his attention back towards the vending machine. Unknown, but intriguing light sparked through the cracks behind it, no doubt part of whatever mysterious invention or project Ford was likely working on down in the basement below. Whatever was going on on the other side of that door, Dipper couldn’t help but want to be a part of it, or at the very least finally get the chance to finally ask Ford the questions he had been asking all summer. To finally be on the same level with someone who understood just how important and vital it was to ask those questions in the first place. To finally have the opportunity to get perspective on the elusive and exciting mysteries of Gravity Falls from someone who had spent years studying them firsthand and was enthralled by their bizarre uniqueness as much as he was.

And yet… as it stood, he couldn’t. Because just as he had been all summer, the author of the journals, or rather, his very own great uncle, was still so close but so far out of his reach.

Whenever Mabel wrote a letter home to her and Dipper’s parents, she made sure to spare no expense when it came to the finer details of their fantastical, often rather harrowing summer escapades in Gravity Falls. Of course, given Mabel’s infamously active imagination and how bizarre and flowery her accounts of such misadventures usually were, their parents never showed any signs of taking too much stock in believing her stories in their responses. Even so, that didn’t stop her from writing about them all the same, and in her latest letter to them, she had much to tell indeed.

“Dear Mom and Dad,” Mabel began, dictating the letter aloud as she sat on the living room floor to write it out. “We’ve been in Gravity Falls for the few months and so much has happened! Just the other day, gravity reversed itself, almost destroying the whole universe and wrecking the whole town!”

At that moment, Mabel happened to glance up at the TV, which was playing a fitting report on the damage the portal’s opening had caused throughout Gravity Falls as a whole. “Well, they say it was just an earthquake,” Lazy Susan said as she stood outside of Greasy’s Diner as a crane was attempting to set it back into its normal position. “But you know what I think? I think I’m gonna have to start serving pineapple upside-right cake! Haha, am I right? …Am I right?”

As the crane ended up clumsily dropping the diner, the shot cut to Mayor Dewey giving a speech downtown. “Good people of Gravity Falls!” the mayor addressed the crowd before him somewhat anxiously. “I-I know that throughout this summer, our fair town here has been plagued by a serious of, er… uh, mishaps. Like this recent mysterious earthquake… or that giant hand-shaped spaceship coming a few weeks ago… or that giant robot ordeal a few weeks before that… or the lake being stolen a few weeks before that… or that scary red eyeball appearing in the sky a few weeks before that…” Dewey paused, a concerned frown crossing his features as a beat of awkward silence passed through the crowd in light of this derailment off topic. “Wait, what was I talking about again?”

As the news report continued, Mabel turned her attention back to her letter, eager to detail the most recent happenings to her parents. “But the coolest part of the summer was when Grunkle Stan’s twin brother came out of this portal-thingy. Now we have two grunkles for the price of one! And they are adorable together!” Upon finishing her letter, Mabel drew a sketch of both Stan and Ford, their expressions surly and grumpy though they were still peacefully holding hands all the same.

“Hi, Mabel!” Steven greeted with a smile as he entered the shack a moment later. “What are you up to?”

“Hiya, Steven! I was just finishing up a letter to my parents about all the stuff that’s been going on around here,” Mabel explained, holding said letter up. “Though at this rate, with so many huge things going on lately, I think its gonna be longer than I anticipated…”

“Yeah, things have been… pretty intense lately…” Steven noted, his smile dissipating as he rubbed his arm and looked to the side. “Garnet and Pearl still haven’t talked to each other after the whole… ya know, Sardonyx thing, and I’m pretty sure none of the Gems are still really over getting their memories back… I just hope that everything will sort itself out and things can finally get back to normal again soon…”

“I’m sure they will,” Mabel reassured with a bright smile, one that was soon accompanied by a newfound rush of warmth in her cheeks as she glanced down at the young Gem’s hand, which happened to be right within her reach as he stood not too far away from her. Really, it would have been so very easy to reach out and take it in an act of solace and comfort given his downcast manner. And perhaps she would have worked up the nerve to do so too… if her brother hadn’t ended up rushing in right before she could get the chance.

“Mabel! Steven!” Dipper exclaimed as he entered the room, carrying a rather large box. “You’ll never guess what I found at the store today!”

“It looks like… a box,” Steven ventured, his small smile returning.

“Dogs!” Mabel exclaimed, forcing herself to perk up. “Dogs with hats!”

“No,” Dipper shook his head, opening the box up only to reveal another, much more decorated box inside of it, which he held up for the pair to see. “It’s my favorite fantasy-talking, level-counting, statistics and graph-paper involving game of all time: Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons! Do you guys wanna play it with me?”

“Well… I do like unicorns,” Mabel noted as she looked over the game’s intricate fantastical box art. “And that hot elf looks promising.”

“Yeah, it looks like it’s a lot of fun, like Sugar Country, or Hint!” Steven chimed in. “How do you play?”

“The rules are super simple,” Dipper assured as he opened the game’s surprisingly large instruction booklet. “First you roll a 38-sided die to determine the level of each player’s statistical analysis poweroid. These orbs relate directly to the amount of quadrants your team as dominion over, which is inverse to the anti-quadrants in your quadrant satchel.”

A beat of stilted silence passed in the aftermath of this rather daunting explanation as Steven and Mabel exchanged an equally bewildered look, neither of them needing to communicate to each other that they had next to no idea what Dipper was talking about. “Uh… w-well that… that sounds, uh…” Steven’s uncertain stumbling soon devolved into exactly what he really felt. “…I’ll be honest, I have no idea what any of that meant…”

“Ok, ok, so after we do all that confusing stuff,” Mabel interjected with a wave of her hand. “Then so we get to ride unicorns?”

“Yes!” Dipper nodded, much to his sister’s excitement, which dissipated almost immediately after he continued. “And… no. First, we make a graph.”

“Ugh, this is like Homework the Game…” Mabel groaned, any interest she might have had in the game completely gone upon hearing this.

“Oh come on, you guys, its not that bad,” Dipper retorted. “Just try it for a round or two. You never know, you might have fun.”

“Ew, how can you even mention fun in the same sentence as all that gross math you gotta do just to play the dang game?” Mabel asked, sticking her tongue out in disdain.

“Well, I’d try it, Dipper, but I think it’s just a little too… complicated for me,” Steven said with sincerity. “And by complicated I mean I’d probably get a headache just trying to figure out how to set the game up…”

“I think most normal people would, Steven,” Mabel remarked, crossing her arms.

Dipper let out a small huff of aggravation at this slight, but even so, he persisted in trying to convince them. “W-well once you get going, its easy,” he assured, even if that wasn’t exactly the truth. After all, Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons was notorious for taking an extensive amount of time and dedication to learn how to play properly, but as far as Dipper was concerned, neither Steven nor Mabel needed to know that. “Besides, I need at least two people to play, so could one of you just-”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Mabel exclaimed with faux surprise as Soos happened to enter the room, giving her leeway to flee to the other side of the den. “Two people!”

“Well wait, with Steven standing here, doesn’t that technically make three?” Soos asked, unaware of the previously unfolding conversation. “Or are we using some kind of new counting system here that I don’t know about.”

“Uh, no…” Dipper frowned, slightly confused before getting back to the matter at hand. “But anyway, Soos, is there any way you’d be up for a little game of D, D, and More D?”

“Aw, sorry, Dipper,” the handyman said, truthfully apologetic. “But I don’t really go for that pen and paper kind of stuff. I’m more of an FCLORPer.”

“…A what?”

“FCLORP,” Soos reiterated with a proud grin. “Foam and Cardboard Legitimate Outdoor Role Play. It is where a passionate brethren of craftsman bring their dreams to magical reality!”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of that,” Steven spoke up, intrigued. “Isn’t that where everyone dresses up in cardboard costumes and fights each other with foam swords? Now that sounds like fun!”

“It totally is, dude,” Soos readily agreed. “You should see us when we break the plastic ball pit balls out. That’s when things really get intense!”

“Uh… well, thanks anyway, Soos,” Dipper said, still rather disappointed that he had no one to play with. Or so it seemed, until Stan walked in.

“Say,” the conman began with an already goading smirk as he noticed the game box his nephew was holding. “Is that the game that’s mostly math and writing and isn’t anything like the picture on the box?”

“Yes, it is!” Dipper said with newfound excitement. “You wanna play it with me, Grunkle Stan?”

“Ha, as if!” Stan laughed rather mockingly as he grabbed the rule book. “Look, kid, I prefer to do my dice rolling in Vegas. Besides, only a game designed by nerds would have ‘charisma’ as a fantasy power. Heh, and check this out,” he turned to a random page in the rule book and began reading out loud callously. “When facing yon adversaries, shield thyself under an elfin buttress.”

“Ha!” Mabel chuckled, thoroughly amused. “Say it again!”

“Buttress!” Stan repeated before both him and Mabel broke down into a round of teasing laughter over the game’s rather self-indulgent manner.

“Hey!” Dipper protested petulantly, taking the rule book back amidst his somewhat flustered embarrassment.

“Aw, come on, you guys,” Steven interjected, clearly sympathetic for Dipper, though he still didn’t really get the jist of the game himself. “Just because this game isn’t really for us, doesn’t mean you have to be so mean about it.”

“Yeah, what Steven said,” Dipper staunchly and crossly agreed. “Heck, maybe you guys just aren’t smart enough to understand it.”

“Uh… actually I think that kinda undermined what I was just trying to say…” Steven noted, though both him and Dipper were overpowered by more bemused laughter from Stan and Mabel.

“Heh, sorry, dude,” Soos remarked to Dipper, somewhat caught up in the round of levity himself. “But it is kind of nerdy. Well, I’m off to lay siege to a goblin fortress.” At this, the handyman girded himself with a sloppily made cardboard helmet and sword before boldly running off to begin his FCLORPing quest. “To my grandma’s backyard!”

Since Dipper had been unable to find any human opponents to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with, he decided to resort to the next best thing he could think of. Which was how he ended up setting the game board up outside the shack facing off in a less than exciting round of the game against Gompers the goat.

“Oh nice! You rolled a 17!” Dipper said with something of a forced grin after he himself rolled the die for the goat, who only let out a dull bleat in response. “Aaaand… this is sad. Maybe I should just go back to obsessing over Wendy again…”

Dipper let out something of a defeated sigh as he leaned back away from the board, unable to keep himself from feeling just the slightest bit lonely. True, he had reconciled with Mabel and Steven following the portal incident and they were all once again on even ground with each other, as they should have been. And yet, for whatever reason, he still felt somewhat distanced from the pair, almost as if remnants of that unsavory tension were lingering behind even still. Their unanimous rejection of his invitation to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with him did make sense; after all, Dipper knew just how complicated the game must come across to the outsider looking in. And yet, the fact that neither of them really seemed very interested in learning how to play it, even if for nothing more than his sake, spoke volumes to him about exactly how much support they were willing to give him. It was abundant in times of tribulation, when they all found that they needed to lean on each other to remain standing strong; but in the smaller, quieter moments, that solidarity was, disappointingly enough, nowhere to be found.

As lost in pensive thought as he was, Dipper didn’t even notice that Gompers had gotten ahold of his 38-sided die until the goat attempted to munch down on it, much to his sudden alarm. “Hey! Give that back!” Dipper ordered, attempting to retrieve the die only for Gompers to maintain his surprisingly firm hold on it. “C’mon, Gompers, let go!” With another heavy pull back, the goat finally released the die, only for it to go flinging back past Dipper and roll under the nearby porch instead. “Ugh, seriously?” Dipper muttered to himself in exasperation as he crawled over to retrieve it. However, right after he had slipped under the porch and began reaching around for the die, the loose soil near the base of the house unexpectedly shifted, crumbling apart right underneath him. Before he could even think to catch himself, Dipper suddenly found himself falling through the newly created opening, passing through several beams and cobwebs before roughly hitting the basement floor. While somewhat shaken, fortunately he didn’t seem to be injured as he began to slowly pick himself up and finally reclaim the elusive 32-sided die, which just so happened to be sitting right next to the now-contained monster Ford had defeated in the gift shop earlier. Even so, Dipper made sure to take care in reaching for the die, lest he aggravate the dangerous creature, only to be abruptly halted right before he could reach it.

“Dipper! Stop!”

“G-Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper exclaimed, startled as he spun around to face the author, who looked far from pleased to see his nephew down in his off-limits lab.

“What did I say about coming down here?” Ford admonished, hands on his hips. “My work is far too dangerous for a single living soul to spend even one second—Wait! Is that a 38-sided die from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?”

“Uh, yeah…” Dipper frowned, somewhat bewildered as he reclaimed the die and held it up for the author to see. “You know that game?”

Ford briefly smirked at this, his manner turning bold as he began to recite the game’s iconic tagline. “With pen and paper, shield and sword-”

“Our quest shall be our just reward!” Dipper joined in just as excitably before joining his uncle in a bout of bemused laughter.

“This is my favorite game in the whole multiverse!” Ford exclaimed, still grinning brightly. “I can’t believe they still make it!”

“They do! And I’ve been looking all day for someone to play it with me,” Dipper said, though his enthusiasm briefly turned to hesitation out of fear of pressing his luck with the author like he had a few days ago. “But uh, i-if you’re too busy to, I totally understand. In fact, I should probably just-”

“Dipper, my boy,” Ford interjected, placing a hand on his nephew’s shoulder before he could depart. “Do you know what this means? We must stop everything I’ve been working on at once… and play!”

Upon hearing this, Dipper couldn’t hold back a small gasp of excited surprise, knowing that the last person he had expected to gain as a welcome opponent for Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons was the author of the journals himself. However, before the pair could get to playing, the octopus creature suddenly broke free from its containment unit, launching itself at Ford and latching onto his face. The author upheld his chipper smile though as he simply tore the creature off is face, which had received a rather alarming series of burns from the monster’s somewhat toxic touch. “That’s… going to leave a mark.”

Seeing as how Steven was just as big of a fan of both Ducktective and Dogcopter as Mabel and Stan were, he eagerly joined them in preparing for the long-awaited crossover between the two properties the following day. All three of them wanted to make sure that they had the ultimate viewing experience; after all, it wasn’t every day that two such incredibly loved characters and universes came together in such a unique and exciting way.

“Ok, so it looks like we’ve got everything we need to watch the Ducktective/Dogcopter crossover tomorrow,” Mabel said as her and Steven looked over the massive mountain of snacks they had accumulate. “I even made mouth-ramps so we can pour food into our mouths without taking our eyes off the screen!” She showed one of the mouth ramps she had created off, a cardboard box filled to the brim with food with a small ramp stuck onto the side, before readily demonstrating how it worked, which was surprisingly well.

“I brought my Ducktective and Dogcopter collectable figurines down here with me so they can be part of this historic event!” Steven proclaimed as he held the figures up. “Ironically enough, I already had these two sitting next to each other on my shelf, so in a way its kinda like I almost predicted them meeting up for real like this!”

“And I used some spare taxidermied parts to mash the two of them up together the flying mystery solver: Dogtectuckcopter!” Stan proclaimed, holding the rather nightmarish amalgamation of fake duck and fake dog he had created up.

“Whoa! Its like a fusion…” Steven mused in amazement.

“Only a super messed up one!” Mabel laughed, amused. “Dipper would love that!”

“Heh, yeah, where is the little squirt anyway?” Stan asked, briefly glancing around for his apparently missing nephew. “I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”

Completely unbeknownst to the group upstairs, Dipper was merely in the basement below them with Ford, just as he had been ever since he had accidentally fallen down there. Since both of them were very well acquainted with the intricate rules of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, they had wasted no time in setting the game up and getting their campaign started. And as was usually the case with the fast-paced high fantasy game, it didn’t take very long for said campaign to build up to the epic (albeit imaginary) intensity it was known for.

“Alright,” Ford began, deftly passing the 38-sided die between his fingers as he laid out the ongoing scenario for his nephew. “You’ve entered the chamber. Princess Unattainabelle beckons you. But wait! It’s a trap! An illusion cast by Probabilitor the Annoying.”

“You know his weakness, right?” Dipper asked with a knowing smirk before they both proclaimed said weakness in unison.

“Prime statistical anomalies over 37 but not exceeding 51!” The pair exclaimed in unison as Dipper rolled the die, fortunately landing on exactly that.

“Aha! Yes!” he cheered brightly as he progressed along in the game past Probabilitor. “Take that, you cardboard wizard!”

“Hm. The old boy looks quite a bit different than he did back in my day,” Ford noted with a nostalgic smile as he looked over the wizard’s in-game artwork.

“Yeah, they change the art every few years,” Dipper said. “Thankfully you missed the period when the creators of the game tried to make it ‘cooler’ by painting everything neon and making the characters rap spells instead of just saying them. It must have been dark times, those 90s.”

“Yeesh,” Ford remarked with a bemused grin as he rolled his eyes. “Sounds like a good time to be stuck between dimensions.”

Upon hearing this, Dipper took pause, his focus on the ongoing game waning somewhat in favor of something he hadn’t really thought much about since him and Ford had begun playing. Something that was admittedly a good deal more important than scouring fake dungeons and defeating fictional wizards. “Great Uncle Ford,” he began evenly enough, hoping that would help him finally answers this time. “I’ve been meaning to ask you… Where were you before you came out of that machine? And… what have you been doing down here these past few days? Are you working on something behind that curtain?” he nodded towards the curtain covering the window that led to the portal’s cavernous chamber, which was now intentionally kept out of sight for whatever reason.

A bout of uneasy hesitation crossed the author’s expression at such pertinent inquiries, and upon that alone, Dipper’s hopes for getting any concrete answers abruptly sank. Of course, they only ended up sinking even further when Ford all but confirmed he had no intentions of giving any. “Dipper, its best if you and the family stay away from that subject…” he replied, casting a brief, somewhat worried glance behind him. “Honestly, I’m not sure any of you could handle the real answer.”

For a moment, Dipper wanted to argue that he could handle it. That, based on everything he had been through during the past several months alone, he could understand and comprehend whatever was lying in wait beyond that curtain. That he wasn’t just the naive, innocent kid that Ford no doubt took him for upon a first glance. But in the end, he knew that arguing the opposite would likely prove exactly that, which was why he decided to pursue an entirely different tangent instead. “Well… what about the Gems?” he asked, glancing aside. “You guys did used to work together way back when, right? Does that mean you’re gonna let them in on, um… everything?”

Once again, Ford hesitated, his manner clearly remorseful and conflicted even as he answered, despite his relative discomfort with the topic in general. “Under normal circumstances, I… might have, but my current relationship with the Gems is somewhat… uneasy, so to speak,” he explained as eloquently as he could. “It’ll take some time before things between all of us will even remotely resemble how they used to be, especially since Rose is… no longer around. In a way, I suppose that the falling out between us all was my fault…” The author paused, his expression sad as he let out a small sigh before shaking his head to clear it. “B-but even if everything was smooth sailing between myself and the Gems, to my understanding, now really wouldn’t be the best time to bother them with external affairs. I hear they’ve been having plenty of problems all their own lately…”

“Oh yeah…” Dipper agreed with a concerned frown. “Things have been pretty tense between the Gems ever since they got their memories back, but Pearl lying to Garnet so they could fuse into Sardonyx really didn’t help anything.”

“So that’s what happened,” Ford mused thoughtfully. “To be perfectly honest, I can’t really blame Pearl for going to such… extensive lengths. I can only imagine how losing Rose might have effected her in particular.”

“From the way she always talks about Rose, it seems like the two of them were pretty close,” Dipper noted.

“They were very close,” the author smirked somewhat nostalgically at this. “It’s part of the reason why Pearl didn’t really care for me too much for me when Rose and I first became research partners. That is, until…” Ford trailed off as he glanced down at the gameboard still sitting between them, a small, brief chuckle escaping him before he diverted away from it. “Well, never mind. I’ll save that story for another time. Certainly things between the Gems will work themselves out in the end.”

Though it seemed as though Ford intended on getting back to the game, Dipper didn’t exactly want to leave it at that, especially as he happened to remember something, or rather someone, that he had regrettably not thought too much about since before the portal opened. And now, given that he was sitting right across from the wise author of the journals himself, he figured now was a good a time as any to finally, hopefully, get some help with it. “Uh… speaking of things working out…” he began rather tentatively. “Great Uncle Ford, you’ve studied a lot of Gem stuff, right?”

“But of course,” Ford said with a somewhat proud grin. “The mysteries of Gemkind were always a highlight of my research. In fact, if I had had the time, I would have started a fourth journal completely dedicated to Gem-related topics. And… depending on how things turn out, I might still run with that idea in the future perhaps… hm…”

“Um, yeah, s-so… did you ever figure out a way to, uh… split a really unhealthy, really dangerous fusion up?” Dipper asked anxiously, trying his best to mask how desperate he really was for a ‘yes’ to this longtime question.

Yet a ‘yes’ wasn’t what Ford gave him, at least not right away as he instead looked to his nephew with slight concern. “Why do you ask?”

“W-well….” Dipper began, unsure of how to really explain this story in a way that wouldn’t remind him of how painful it really was. But upon realizing that was nigh impossible, he decided to just get on with it anyway, knowing that if Ford really did hold a solution, then that pain would be more than worth it in the end. “Near the beginning of the summer, Steven, Mabel, and I met this Gem named Lapis Lazuli. We helped her out and then she went away for a while, but when she came back, me and her hung out a lot and… w-well I guess you could say we became pretty close friends. But then… these two Gems from Homeworld showed up: Peridot and Jasper. They tried to take Steven and the Gems back with them, but we ended up stopping them and crashing their ship near the lake, and it seemed like everything was going to be ok, until…” Dipper trailed, off hesitating as he stared at the ground in front of him as he realized that, even though weeks had passed since that fateful, awful dawn on the lake’s shores, the reality of what had happened there still hadn’t gotten any easier to swallow. “U-until Jasper… forced Lapis to fuse with her so she could take all of us out. So they fused into this huge, powerful monster of a fusion named Malachite, b-but before they could attack us, Lapis took control and dragged them both into the lake, a-and… and she’s been stuck down there ever since. She’s keeping herself trapped down there and fighting Jasper pretty much every second of every day just to keep us safe… to keep me safe…”

Though Ford had been silent for the sake of intently listening to his nephew’s solemn tale up until this point, upon noticing the tears just starting to well up in Dipper’s eyes, he found he could keep quiet no longer. “Dipper…” he began gently, only to be quickly interupted.

“It’s all my fault…” Dipper muttered, the guilt in his tone palpable as he wiped his eyes dry. “And the worst part of it is, I have no idea how to save her, but I have to. I owe it to her, and e-even besides that, she doesn’t deserve to be trapped again. And that’s why… I-I was hoping maybe you could maybe help me with that?” he asked, looking to Ford with almost pleading sincerity. “The Gems have been too busy with trying to track Peridot down to do anything about this, b-but if you know how to split a fusion like Malachite up, then we could finally free Lapis!”

Ford’s expression was already full of both sympathy and remorse before he even said anything. And when he speak up on the matter as his nephew eagerly awaited his response, he decided to be completely honest; after all, there was really no point in being anything else on a subject as sensitive as this. “Dipper, I… I’m sorry,” the author began evenly, yet sincerely. “Most of my research concerning Gem fusions tended to focus more on how they were formed and functioned rather than how they fell apart. So… suffice to say my knowledge on the topic is rather… limited, at best.”

“O-oh…” Dipper was unable to hold back a disappointed sigh upon hearing this, knowing that, as usual, he was right back to square one when it came to freeing Lapis from her watery prison. “Ok, I understand… thanks anywa-”

“However,” Ford interjected with a small smile of reassurance. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be willing to figure the solution to such a complicated problem out. After all, I’d like to think that working through the impossible is something I have a certain knack for.”

“So… you’ll help?” Dipper asked, a sense of rising hope filling him.

“Yes,” the author confirmed, his smile widening. “It might not be an easy task, but I promise, I’ll do anything I can to help you rescue her.”

“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper caught Ford quite off guard with an unexpected hug, one that the author awkwardly returned as he realized just how important this matter apparently was to his nephew. Which was why, for whatever reason, he felt a strong obligation to keep the promise he had just made, no matter how difficult doing so might prove to be. “Oh! Uh, s-sorry!” Dipper exclaimed, clearly flustered as he broke away from the hug.

“Don’t be,” Ford assured with a small laugh. Even so, the author paused for a beat, knowing that while they couldn’t exactly do much to save Lapis at that very moment, there was perhaps something he could do to help raise his nephew’s no doubt still lowered spirits, even if it would be a rather small attempt at best. “You know… while I can’t tell you much about where I’ve been the past 30 years, I can show you something I brought back with me.” The author’s grin turned wry as he reached into a small pouch tied to his belt and fished out a tiny, unassuming black box, which he opened to reveal something quite incredible. Upon a first glance, it seemed to be a many-sided die, the same kind that was often used in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, yet this one was quite different in many ways. Firstly, its crystalline surface emitted a faint, almost magical glow, but even more fascinating was the fact that the various cryptic symbols on its many sides seemed to be in a state of continual flux, constantly shifting and changing on their own accord to the point that the same symbol rarely ever appeared twice. “An infinity-sided die,” Ford proclaimed, quite proud of such a rare interdimensional find.

“Whoa…” Dipper gasped, his eyes wide with amazement as he looked to the special game piece. “That’s so cool! And… impossible!”

“These things are outlawed in 9,000 dimensions,” Ford explained, clearly just as excited as his nephew was. “You wanna know why? Look at those symbols. Infinite sides means infinite outcomes. If I rolled it, anything could happen. Our faces could melt into jelly, the world could turn into an egg, or… you could just roll an 8. Who knows? That’s why I have to keep it in this protective cheap plastic case. Now, let’s get back to the game! You’ve got Probabilitor on the ropes, though his power level ranks far above yours. You’d need to be accompanied by a level 19 paladin at least in order to get past him.”

“Ugh, of course,” Dipper groaned in exasperation. “If only we had one more player. That would make this so easy!”

“Hm…. Another player, you say?” the author mused, glancing down to the game board, or more particularly, an image of a knight in the background of its artwork. He had considered this idea earlier, when Dipper had first invited him to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with him, in fact, but the author had put the thought aside for obvious reasons. Though now, after giving it a little more thought and with the opportunity that had just presented itself, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. “I think I know just the Gem…”

Pearl let out a small, sad sigh as she sat on the living room couch, her hands folded neatly in her lap as she stared down at them solemnly. Only about a day had passed since Garnet had discovered her deception, and as far as the white Gem knew, nothing had changed concerning her leader’s disposition concerning the situation. Or rather, concerning the massive, rather inexcusable mistake she herself had committed against her. A mistake that, despite Pearl’s best efforts, she had been completely unable to distract herself from. Not that she thought she really deserved to have a break from the memory of her wrongdoing anyway; as far as she was concerned, she deserved to carry the oppressive weight of this guilt around with her. After all, it was only fair after she had absolutely betrayed the trust of someone she respected and cared for as much as Garnet.

And so, in light of the unsteady relations between the team and a lack of any pressing missions, Pearl expected that her day would be rather uneventful as a whole. What she hadn’t been expecting, however, was for both Dipper and Ford to suddenly show up at the temple quite out of nowhere.

“Uh, hey, Pearl,” Dipper greeted somewhat tentatively as he entered the temple first.

“Oh, hello, Dipper!” Pearl replied with a warm smile that quickly fell as Ford followed in after him. “And… Stanford… What a surprise…”

“G-greetings, Pearl,” Ford offered a somewhat awkward smile and wave, one that Pearl met rather coldly, as he had honestly been expecting she would. “I simply came by to—I mean, we came by to see if you wanted to… o-or rather, if you had the time to join us in… I mean-”

“We wanted to see if you were up to playing a game with us,” Dipper interjected, getting the point across much more concisely than Ford could in his apparent discomfort in interacting with the white Gem in light of recent events.

“A game?” Pearl tilted her head in confusion as she looked between the pair skeptically. “… What kind of game?”

Ford was quick to properly collect himself at this, a small grin crossing his features as he took a small step forward and presented Pearl with a 38-sided die. “You wouldn’t by chance happen to remember Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, would you?”

Pearl was unable to contain a gasp of surprise at this, a brief smile of excitement coming along with it, though she was quick to press it away. “I-I… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she claimed, crossing her arms as she sharply glanced away. “I’ve never even heard of… what was it again? Dungeons—something? W-well, whatever it is, I’m sure its completely ludicrous and not at all engaging or immersive or anything of the like.”

“Oh, but don’t you remember, Pearl?” Ford asked, raising an eyebrow. “30 years ago, you and used to spend many a night embroiled in epic rounds of slaying ogres and challenging each other with labyrinthine dungeons and quadratic equations. I always used to think it was a treasured pastime between the two of us. You know, after you stopped thinking I was competing against you for Rose.”

Upon hearing this lightly teasing jab, Pearl let out an appalled scoff, her cheeks lighting up in a blue blush as she glared away hotly. Dipper on the other hand, was quite surprised to hear this news. “You guys used to play D, D, and More D together?” he asked curiously.

“N-no!” Pearl exclaimed, though at the very same time, Ford offered his own enthusiastic response.

“All the time!” the author assured brightly.

“W-well, I certainly don’t remember anything of the sort!” the white Gem protested crossly.

“Perhaps you just haven’t managed to recall those memories yet?” Ford theorized thoughtfully.

“Yeah! Maybe playing the game will end up jogging your memory of it!” Dipper suggested, offering the white Gem a hopeful smile.

“I… don’t think so, Dipper,” Pearl denied gently enough, not wanting to upset her pupil, though it seemed as though she didn’t have the same consideration for the author. “After all, I have much more… important matters to attend to… You can see yourselves out.” And with that, the white Gem abruptly turned on her heel to head towards the temple gate, her arms still folded as she resisted the urge to turn back around, even as Dipper and Ford continued conversing.

“Aw man… how am I gonna get past Probabilitor now?” Dipper asked, clearly disappointed by Pearl’s rejection.

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Ford reassured, placing a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Still, it really is a shame… Pearl is one of the best players I’ve ever met. After only a few hours of me explaining the game to her, she had already managed to catch up to me in almost all of her categories. And don’t even get me started on her incredible strategic abilities! One time, we were cornered against four ice dragons with essentially no magic left between either of us, and she managed to beat them back and get us out of that dungeon in only seven rolls! It was spectacular!”

“If I recall correctly…” Pearl suddenly interjected, glancing over her shoulder with a hint of a wry expression on her face. “It was five ice dragons in six rolls… Though of course,” the white Gem turned fully, finally cracking a bit of a sardonic smile. “I could be wrong. After all, my memory might still be a little hazy…”

“Well, regardless of the specifics, your tactics still were always very impressive back in the day,” Ford professed with a fond, genuine smile.

“But of course they were,” the white Gem shrugged, smirking. “After all, I learned such tactics in the uproarious intensity of an actual battlefield thousands of years ago. Applying those strategies to theoretical monsters and warlocks really isn’t that different when you think about it.”

At this, neither Pearl nor Ford could hold back a shared warm laugh, one that seemed to spark up the playful camaraderie they used to share in the past, one that they now both fully seemed to remember. And upon seeing things starting to repair themselves between the pair, Dipper felt inspired enough to present his initial offer to the white Gem yet again. “So… does this mean you’ll play with us?” he asked, hopeful.

Pearl took pause, hesitating briefly as she remembered that she deserved no such distraction from the mistake she had made against Garnet. Which meant that she didn’t deserve to enjoy herself in a pastime that she now remembered she really did enjoy quite a bit. And yet… upon meeting her young pupil’s expectant glance, she found that it was just about impossible for her to say no. “Oh, alright,” she chuckled softly. “I suppose I can join you two for a little while… “

“Pearl, I think we all know that a ‘little’ while is rarely ever little when it comes to Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons,” Ford remarked rather coyly.

The white Gem let out a genuine laugh at this, rather happy to follow after Dipper and Ford as they lead the way down to the Mystery Shack for what was bound to be an intense afternoon of dungeon spelunking and equation solving. “I can’t argue with you there.”

Sure enough, a little while had turned into an all-day campaign as Dipper, Ford, and Pearl hypothetically set out on their grandiose, mathematical quest. True to the author’s recounting, the white Gem was surprisingly skilled at the game, her recollection of its intricate rules returning to her memory practically the moment she sat down to play it. And with that recollection came a renewed enthusiasm for the playful pastime her and Ford used to share, one that showed itself in every roll of the die and move across the board she made. Seeing as how both Ford and Dipper already had plenty of enthusiasm towards the game themselves even before Pearl had joined them, this made for an air of genuine excitement as they all congregated in the basement lab to carve out their intrepid victory.

“Excellent work, Dipper! You finally managed to defeat that troublesome fire golem!” Pearl proclaimed with a congratulatory grin.

“Yeah,” Dipper said with a slightly exasperated sigh. “Now if only I could have stopped those woodland imps from stealing all my healing potions…”

“Heh, speaking of imps,” Ford remarked, sending Pearl a wry, reminiscent smirk. “That reminds me of the time Amethyst snuck down here and attempted to steal just about every morsel of food I had in the house.”

“Oh, that was a mess,” Pearl chuckled heartily upon hearing the familiar tale. “I remember there was a trail of food leading all the way between here and the temple! No wonder that horrific moth man creature attacked us that night when we were trying to clean it up!”

“A moth man?” Dipper asked, quite intrigued. “Like the one in the journal?”

“The very one,” Ford nodded in confirmation. “It was so dark that we barely even saw him coming until he jumped at me out of nowhere to try and get my lantern.”

“Oh, you should have seen it, Dipper!” Pearl laughed openly. “The bold, brazen ‘author of the journals’, cowered in fear against a tree, crying for mercy against a cloud of moths, of all things. It was hilarious!”

“I-in my defense, that ‘cloud of moths’ just so happened to be in the shape of a man, and a very intimidating one at that!” Ford protested, clearly flustered.

“Ah yes, so intimidating that it only took one toss of Rose’s shield to completely dispel it and save you, yet again,” the white Gem remarked, her tone still coy and playful. “Then again, I suppose it wasn’t entirely your fault, Stanford. After all, you were rather danger prone back in those days.”

“Well, if I was, then I suppose I was able to consider myself lucky to have such reliable friends like you, Rose, and the others,” Ford remarked with a warm, genuine smile, one that seemed to carry an underlying layer of unspoken remorse to it as well.

Pearl seemed to mirror this, her own expression somewhat sad and hesitant before shifting into a soft, nostalgic smile, a smile that she didn’t try to chase away this time. “Friends… right…” she muttered, glancing away briefly before quickly perking up and returning her attention back to the game once more. “Now, where were we? Ah yes! Chasing down those pesky imps…”

At this sudden change of gears, Dipper and Ford exchanged a brief glance of confusion, but even so, they were quick to follow Pearl’s lead and get their heads back into the game. After all, from where they stood now, they were bound to have an entire untold adventure ahead of them.

While Mabel knew from over 12 years of firsthand experience that Dipper usually kept rather late hours, most of the time that fact didn’t upset her own normal sleeping routine too much. However, this particular night was an exception to that, as she was finding it just about impossible to fall asleep with her brother intently plotting out his ongoing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons strategy only a few feet away from her.

“Ok, so if I had a dragon here…” Dipper muttered to himself as he sketched out his plans amidst several pieces of graph paper. “Oh, and then a plus the fire mode over here-”

“Dipper, are you ever going to sleep?” Mabel asked as she rolled over in bed to face him, finally exasperated to the point that she couldn’t keep silent on it any longer. “You’ve been saying dork words for hours…”

“Sorry, Mabel, but I’ve got to finish this dungeon,” Dipper countered, not even bothering to glance up as he continued working. “It’s gonna totally stump Pearl and Great Uncle Ford tomorrow, I can’t wait to see the look on their faces!”

Mabel took pause upon hearing this, her already present frown deepening as she sat up. “You’ve, uh… been spending a lot of time with old Fordsy lately, huh?” she asked, her tone innocently curious enough. She didn’t see much of a reason to mention Pearl in her question, namely because she knew that Dipper already spent a good deal of time with the white Gem through his sword lessons, which meant that this was nothing really new. His recently developed comradery with Ford, on the other hand was. And for whatever reason, Mabel wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it.

“You have no idea,” Dipper said with an enthusiastic smile. “I knew the author must have been cool, but he’s better than I imagined! And… he doesn’t make fun of me like you and Grunkle Stan do.”

“Ha! Give him time!” Mabel teased, though she instantly wished she hadn’t upon seeing her brother’s expression sour at this remark. “Nah, you got me,” she faked playfulness, though once more Dipper offered her no response. Her own brief smile faded as she lay back down, letting out a small, worried sigh while staring up at the ceiling. True, the painful gap between them torn asunder by the portal had been mostly repaired, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still holes left behind all the same. Holes that she was only now starting to notice and had essentially no idea how to fix. “You got me…”

The Mystery Shack was abuzz with excitement the following day, all in anticipation of the long-awaited, massively hyped-up Ducktective/Dogcopter crossover that was set to air that evening. Steven had already arrived about an hour ago, and in that span of time, him and Mabel had gone through just about every theory and wish they had for the special, both of them more than eager to finally get a chance to see it. It was easy to say that they had sufficiently prepared themselves emotionally and mentally for this grand crossover by the time Grenda arrived to view it with them.

“Thanks for coming over to watch the crossover with us tonight, Grenda,” Mabel smiled as her and Steven greeted the larger girl at the door.

“Of course!” Grenda exclaimed in her usual boisterous way as she held up her Ducktective and Dogcopter flags. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for these two characters to meet my entire life!”

“Same here,” Steven nodded in agreement. “Or, ya know, at least ever since they announced the crossover last month.”

“Hey hey, look at you!” Mabel smirked as she noticed Stan coming downstairs, wearing his finest suit and tie. “Someone’s all dressed up.”

“It’s a big night,” Stan remarked as he adjusted his tie. “I never thought I’d live to see the day where a dog with a propeller on its back meets a duck who solves murder mysteries for a living. It really is a wonderful time to be alive.”

No sooner had the conman finished speaking than the alarm on Steven’s phone suddenly went off, eliciting an excited gasp from everyone. “It’s time!” the young Gem announced happily.

“Viewing positions, everyone!” Mabel ordered, pointing to the living room as they all began making a mad dash towards it. However, the entire group stopped short just as they passed into its threshold, surprise and disappointment hitting all of them as they caught sight of the graph paper and extensive notes regarding Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons strewn about all over the room. And, sitting in the very center of the den, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl were all completely engrossed in their ongoing game, all three of them clearly having a fun time as they were all but oblivious to the group that had just walked in on them.

“Ah! Graph paper! Kill it!” Grenda shouted, furiously stomping on the nearest piece of it.

“Uh… what’s going on in here?” Steven asked, much more calmly. “And wait, Pearl? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know…” Pearl began, sending her young ward a casual smile. “Just completely decimating these two in a duel for the mystical forbidden treasure of old.”

“Not for long, you won’t,” Dipper challenged brazenly as he rolled the die, though Mabel interupted before the game could go any further.

“Uh, Dipper? Could you guys maybe move this to another room?” she asked, only thinly veiling her annoyance.

“No dice!” Ford said. “We ran out of room in the basement and we’re going for a world record. Now… dice!” And with that, the author rolled, landing exactly the number he had been hoping for to advance. “Ha! 32, yes! 7,000 points damage!”

“Oh man! You got me!” Dipper laughed, accepting this setback gracefully.

“Hm… lucky roll…” Pearl mused, offering Ford a coy grin of defeat.

“Ugh, why? Why with this?” Stan groaned, not bothering to hide his aggravation with the trio as he sent Ford and Pearl an irritated glare in particular. “You two wanna break some records? You’ve already broken two for world’s nerdiest old man and world’s nerdiest… rock person?”

“Ugh… why am I not surprised that you don’t understand, Stan?” Pearl crossed her arms. “Amethyst used to crack her sarcastic little remarks about myself and Ford back in the day when we used to play this game together, just like you are now. You and her really are two of a kind.”

“Yeah, I can’t say I really blame her,” Stan retorted just as dryly, though he did briefly glance away at the remembrance of how much things had soured between him and Amethyst recently. “It’s not like you two don’t have it coming.”

“Hey, at least we’re not all keyed up to watch some kid’s show,” Ford countered, meeting his brother’s unimpressed expression evenly.

“Hey! I’ll have you know that this Ductective/Dogcopter crossover is gonna be legendary!” Stan snapped defensively. “People will be talking about how hilarious and tragic it is for decades! Or at least for like, a week or something.”

“I don’t get a lot of either of them, but I like animals in human situations,” Grenda pointed out.

“Plus, the music is really good,” Steven added. “And don’t even get me started on those crazy plot twists in both shows! They have so much in common, its like they were made to be together!”

“A-and its starting soon!” Mabel urged fretfully. “Grunkle Stan, do something!”

Stan complied, letting out an exasperated huff as he reached to remove the graph paper covering the television, only for Ford to intercept him by suddenly grabbing his wrist to stop him. “Move that and pay the price,” the author warned, his tone surprisingly grave. Startled, Stan took pause for a moment, only to instantly regain his previously sardonic attitude.

“Oh what? Fifty magical elf dollars?” the conman deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t mock our fantastical monetary system!” Ford snapped fiercely.

“Honestly, Stan, you’re just being childish about this whole thing!” Pearl said just as sharply.

“Yeah, I’m the one being childish, not you guys and your game about knights and fairy princesses and unicorns,” the conman remarked coldly. “And you know what? I’ll mock it all I want; it’s my TV room.”

“It’s my house!” the author argued, clearly angry by this point. However, he did make something of an attempt to calm down by letting out an evening sigh as he relinquished his brother’s hand and instead pulled his bag of many-sided die out instead. “Listen, Stanley, did it ever occur to you that if you joined us, you might have fun?”

“What?” Stan scoffed, clearly caught off guard by this offer. Despite his brief surprise regarding it however, he was quick to reject it, refusing to let his brother have his way, which, as far as he was concerned, always seemed to be the case. “Now you listen to me!” the conman began, snatching the bag right out of the author’s hand. The bag that, as both Ford and Dipper knew, contained something potentially very dangerous inside. “As long as I live I will never-”

“G-Grunkle Stan!” Dipper attempted to warn, though by this point Stan was far too incensed to really listen.

“Ever-”

“Stanley! Don’t!” Ford gasped in alarm as he saw the conman raise the bag up high.

“Play your smartypants nerd game!” Stan finished his harsh proclamation by throwing the bag down onto the ground hard. Unfortunately, out of it rolled a plastic black box, and out of that rolled a glowing die with ever-changing sides.

The infinity-sided die.

For a single, anxious moment, the die was still in motion as it rolled across the carpeted floor, but once it finally came to a stop, it did so on a symbol that had only just appeared: the outline of a powerful wizard. And, just as Ford had said would happen, the die’s power instantly brought its outcome to life. In a flash of blinding light, four mystical figures materialized right out of the box art of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, brought to life and to reality in front of the shocked group who could do nothing more than watch as this impossibility unfolded right before their eyes. The assemblage of characters consisted of a massive golden griffon, a lumbering, bulky ogre, a attractive, bow-wielding elf, and finally, a cackling, bearded magician, clearly the leader of the crew as he spoke up first.

“Mortals of dimension 514÷Y! Kneel before me and-” the wizard interupted himself to roll his own die to see what threat he should dole out. “Snivel! I am Probabilitor! The greatest wizard in all of mathology! Give or take an error of 0.4.”

“Eh? Is this… normal?” Stan asked, aptly confused.

“Probabilitor?” Pearl also questioned, bewildered in a different way. “As in the one from the game? How is this even possible? Stanford, what did that die of yours do?!”

“That’s a… long story that there may or may not be time to explain all the details of later,” Ford said, his manner stiff and defensive as he kept a hand tucked away inside his trench coat. Just in case.

“Uh, are you here to send us on the quest of a lifetime because we’re the smartest players you’ve ever met?” Dipper asked the intruding wizard, hoping that his intentions weren’t as sinister as his sudden appearance came across.

“You are the smartest players I’ve ever met!” Probabilitor acknowledged with a sinister grin. “That’s why I’m going to eat your brains to gain your intelligence! Its what I do.”

“It’s his thing,” the wizard’s ogre companion added pointedly.

As everyone reacted to this news with alarmed surprise, Probabilitor took advantage of the moment as he ordered his mythical cohorts into action. “By the power of math, seize them!”

“Your math is no match for me gun, you idiot!” Ford retorted, finally pulling out the powerful laser gun he kept tucked away inside his coat. The author readily took aim, paying no mind to Pearl as she summoned her spear beside him or Dipper as he discreetly slipped away to retrieve something, fortunately without the wizard taking notice.

“Math ray!” Probabilitor shouted, a burst of mathematical power shooting out from his staff. The blast was more than enough to knock the gun clean out of Ford’s hands, leaving him essentially defenseless and opening things up for Pearl to take charge.

“Looks like I have to come to your rescue yet again, Stanford,” the white Gem remarked confidently as she rushed forward. She swung her spear widely, aiming for Probabilitor, though before her strike could land, Pearl suddenly found herself heavily pushed to the ground and pinned there by the griffon and its large, sharp talons. Her spear fell out of her hand and disappeared in its usual burst of sparkles, and with her arms as restrained as they were, summoning another one was nigh impossible.

“You were saying?” Ford remarked much more harshly than he had intended to, though given the circumstances, such stress was reasonable enough.

However, before either the author, the white Gem, or anyone else for that matter could try to thwart Probabilitor’s intentions, Dipper suddenly dashed forward seemingly out of nowhere, the Ancient Sea Blade tight in his grip. Ford in particular was rather startled to see his young nephew not only wielding such a weapon, but to see him running headfirst into obvious danger with a fearless battle cry. Unfortunately, much like Pearl, Dipper’s valiant attempt to cut the hostile wizard was ultimately put to a swift end as Probabilitor lashed out, a burst of his mysterious, dangerous magic spiraling right towards the sword-wielding boy.

“Dipper!” Mabel cried fearfully, though luckily, her brother reacted accordingly. At just the right moment, Dipper twisted his sword in front of him, pulling off a rather risky block that only worked to partially protect him. The Ancient Sea Blade took the brunt of the hit as Dipper was knocked back, and in practically an instant, the wizard’s magic destroyed the elegant sword, causing it to explode in an array of sparkles and mathematical symbols until nothing was left of it at all.

“Enough of this!” Probabilitor exclaimed hotly, pointing his staff in a commanding gesture as the griffon spread its wings and quickly worked to gather Pearl, Ford, and Dipper in hits talons. “I’m not here to play games!” With this, the wizard sent another blast of magic out, this one towards the nearest wall of the shack, which he easily blew a massive hole into. With an insane cackle, Probabilitor flew out through the hole, his band of companions following right behind with their captive trio in tow. “Now to the forest, for the ultimate game!”

“Oh no! Dipper! Pearl! Mr. Ford!” Steven cried worriedly as he rushed up to the hole along with Mabel as they both watched in dismay as they all disappeared into the forest, out of sight and out of reach.

“So…” Grenda spoke up after a beat of worried silence. “The room’s free now. Who wants to watch Ducktective and Dogcopter?” Another moment passed, this one much more awkward as Steven and Mabel looked to her in appalled disbelief at such a callous suggestion. “Nobody? Oh well! More couch for Grenda!”

“Oh, this is really bad,” Mabel said, both her tone and expression very fretful. “That crazy wizard is gonna eat Dipper and Ford’s brains! And… Pearl’s? I think? Isn’t that technically her gem?”

“W-we have to save them!” Steven interjected with a much more pertinent concern.

“Eh, maybe let ‘em get a couple of bites in Ford’s brain first,” Stan remarked, leaning against the side of the hole casually. “Even things out smart-wise.”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel scolded, nowhere near as accepting of this alarming kidnapping as he seemed to be.

“Alright, alright,” the conman quickly folded upon meeting his niece’s troubled manner. “I guess if we have no other choice, we’ll go on a… ugh, epic wizard quest.”

“Yay!” the trio of kids exclaimed in unified excitement, all more than ready for such a harrowing adventure if it meant saving their family and friends.

“Now before we hit the road, everyone grab a weapon,” Stan said, still far from enthused from having to go on this journey. After all, he wasn’t particularly excited about having to rescue Ford again, only to no doubt be denied proper thanks once more.

Everyone easily found whatever they had on hand to use as a weapon in their quest. Steven already had one on hand in his shield, as did Stan as he pulled out the baseball bat he kept tucked away in the porch couch’s cushions. On impulse, Mabel grabbed a rake, though Grenda was by far the most heavily equipped as she hoisted a recliner up, more than ready to use it as a weapon if needed.

“We’re coming for you, Dipper!” Mabel boldly proclaimed as everyone prepared to set off on their daring, magical rescue mission. “And Grunkle Ford! And Pearl! And possibly that hot elf, if he’s got anything to do with this.”

“Let’s go!” Steven exclaimed, leading the way as they all rushed headlong into the forest, unsure of what they’d encounter on their journey, but ready to face it all the same.

Probabilitor and his companions had wasted no time at all in setting up a camp deep in the magical forests of Gravity Falls. While the elf and the griffon stood guard in the event of any unwanted intruders, the wizard took the time to taunt his three captives, all of whom were attempting to struggle out of the rather tight bonds that kept them restrained to the large tree in the middle of the clearing.

“With each brain I eat, I shall increase my enchantelligence!” Probabilitor chortled as he used a magical tape measurer to get a count on Ford, Dipper, and Pearl’s heads.

“If my hands were free, I’d break every part of your face!” the author threatened fiercely.

“Not if I get to it first!” Pearl added just as sharply as she sent the wizard a cold glare.

“Squabble all you want,” Probabilitor chuckled darkly. “Either way, the time has come! Hot elf! Ready the brain-cooking pot!”

The elf let out an exasperated sigh, flipping his hood off to reveal his luminous silver hair. “Yes, Probabilitor,” he groaned, rolling his eyes as he took aim at the nearby caldron and ignited it with a flaming arrow.

“Haha! According to my calculations, your brains shall be a delicious part of my balanced wizard breakfast,” the wizard concluded to his captives with a triumphant smirk. “Or lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever mealtime it currently is.”

“Hmph, then clearly it seems that you’ve miscalculated,” Pearl retorted, turning her nose up haughtily. “Even if your ridiculous plan succeeded, you’d only have two brains to snack on anyway since I’m a Gem. Which means, I don’t have a brain.” A beat of curious silence passed at this as both Ford and Dipper sent Pearl questioning looks before she realized what she had just said. “Wait… I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh believe me, I’m well aware of your relative brainlessness,” Probabilitor remarked with a knowing grin.

“Again, not what I meant!”

“Which is why I plan on grinding up that pretty little gemstone of yours into the perfect seasoning for brains à la carte!” the wizard finished before breaking down into yet another round of wild laughter.

“Well that’s… dark,” Dipper noted exchanging a concerned look with Pearl.

“You know, I’d almost rather be back at the temple, moping about how upset Garnet is with me…” the white Gem groaned, slumping against the ropes restraining her to the tree. That is, until she remembered just how unbearably tense things actually were between her and the Gem leader in light of what she had done. “Then again… maybe not…”

Though the mystical forest was quite dense, Mabel, Steven, Stan, and Grenda didn’t have a particularly hard time finding their way through it, mostly since they were easily able to follow the trail of griffon feathers that had unintentionally been left behind. So far, the group hadn’t encountered any obstacles or threats along the way, but even so, they were all still on high alert in the event that they did, their makeshift weapons at the ready to defend themselves from any dangers Probabilitor might put in their path.

“We must be getting close,” Stan noted, flinching as he slapped a past on his back. “These fairy bites are getting more frequent.”

“H-hey! Look! Listen!” the now squished fairy cried in pain as she lay crushed against the conman’s shoulder in a pile of glitter.

“I hope we’re not too late,” Steven said fretfully. “I’m not really sure how I’d be able to go back to the temple and explain to Garnet and Amethyst that Pearl got eaten by a crazy board game wizard. A lot of bad things have been happening lately, but I have a feeling that would probably take the cake…”

“Halt!” The group came to an abrupt stop as the massive, threatening ogre suddenly emerged from the nearby greenery, stomping down in front of them and barring the path ahead. “Yon interlopers are trespassing on the ancient forest of Probabilitor the wizard! If ye wish to pass, first, ye must complete seven unworldly quests, each more difficult than the-”

“NO!” Grenda suddenly shouted, brutally hitting the unsuspecting ogre with her heavy chair. The monster fell to the ground with a mighty thud, easily defeated and apparently unconscious, though based on his lack of breathing, he could have possibly been worse off than that.

“Is he… dead?” Mabel asked, poking the downed ogre with her rake.

“He’s magic, sweetie, I’m sure he’s fine,” Stan assured casually enough before turning to Grenda with a serious whisper. “There are no cops in the forest, we take this to our graves.”

Grenda nodded in agreement with this resolve, but even so, Steven and Mabel pressed onward, still clearly worried about their primary mission. “Well… I guess that’s one way to clear a path,” the young Gem noted as they passed by the supposedly unconscious ogre. “Maybe not the best way, but still, a way.”

It was clear from the increasing frequency of Probabilitor’s manic chuckles that his preparations for cooking his captives’ brains were nearly complete. Unfortunately though, despite their skill in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl had yet to think of a way out of their very real plight, one that could very well cost them all their lives if they didn’t escape from it soon.

“W-what do we do? What do we do?!” Dipper asked in a sharp, panicked whisper, hating how relatively defenseless all three of them were in this situation.

“Stop thinking, Dipper!” Ford retorted, trying to be as calm as possible, something that Pearl also tried to maintain, despite her own dread in this tight spot. “The more wrinkly your brain gets, the more he’ll want to eat it!”

“And now, a little math problem,” Probabilitor said as he stepped up to his trio of captives, a hungry grin claiming his face. “When I subtract your brains from your skulls,” he began, tapping both Dipper and Ford’s heads with his staff. “Add salt,” he lightly poked Pearl’s gemstone at this, causing the white Gem to cringe from the unexpected vibration. “And divide your families, what’s the remainder?”

“Your butt!”

“What?” the wizard asked, startled as he turned to face this unexpected voice. “My butt isn’t part of this particular equation!”

“And neither are we!” Mabel boldly proclaimed as her, Steven, Stan, and Grenda suddenly jumped out of the bushes, all of them still wielding their makeshift weapons brazenly.

“But here we are!” Steven chimed in before waving to the trio tied to the tree. “Hi, Dipper! Hi, Pearl! Hi, Mr. Ford!”

“Well, at least someone came to rescue us…” Pearl noted, though her tone alone conveyed her uncertainty about the group’s effectiveness in actually saving them.

“Drat! How did you get past my one guard?!” Probabilitor scowled, gripping his staff tightly. “Very well… There is one way you can save your family. You must defeat me in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: Real Life Edition!”

With a wild cackle, the wizard raised his staff, magic pouring out of it as a large, ornate game board, one that floated just a few feet off the ground just as Probabilitor himself had begun to.

“What? Oh come on!” Stan groaned, knowing that him trying to avoid having to play the complicated, rather boring game was what started this mess in the first place.

“I choose my characters…” Probabilitor continued, snapping his fingers to create three miniaturized, identical ogres on the game board. “Vs… yours!” Upon another burst of mathematical magic, the wizard pointed to his trio of captives, all of whom disappeared from their spot against the tree as he did. They reappeared an instant later, shrunken down themselves as they stood upon Probabilitor’s outstretched palm, unanimously startled by this unexpected shift. However, their size hadn’t been the only thing to change; each of them was now clad in the archaic attire befitting Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons characters, with Dipper and Ford both dressed in earthy adventuring clothes while Pearl had received something of a sparse knight’s armor.

“Ah! My ears! They’re so pointy!” Ford exclaimed, flicking his now elfish ears.

“T-there better be something protective under this tunic,” Dipper remarked before briefly turning around to check. “Oh no, there isn’t!”

“I don’t know what you two are complaining about,” Pearl smirked as she looked over the crimson cape her armor came equipped with. “I could get used to this…”

“Aw, you guys look so adorable!” Steven gasped with delight upon seeing the tiny trio.

“I know, right?” Mabel agreed just as brightly. “Makes me wish I had me camera on me to get a pic of how cute you guys are in your little fantasy outfits!”

“Ok, seriously, you guys, now is not the time!” Dipper scolded, sending a petulant look up at them.

“I’m with the kid, can’t we just arm wrestle or something?” Stan asked, far from enthused.

“Come on, this game is a lot of fun!” Probabilitor urged. “I even had my mom pack me a lunch,” he continued, pulling some apple slices out of his paper bag lunch. “Ew, apple slices? I’ll eat you last.”

“Ugh, just make with the rules already, ugly,” the conman rolled his eyes as him, Mabel, and Steven took a seat on the other side of the game board.

“The game is a battle royale,” the wizard began to explain. “We help out characters by casting spells determined by rolls of the dice. If you win, I’ll go back to my own dimension.”

“Hooray!” Steven and Mabel chimed in unison, hoping for such a peaceful outcome.

“But if I win, I eat their brains/gem!” Probabilitor grinned as he let Dipper, Ford, and Pearl down into the game board itself.

“Well,” Pearl remarked, crossing her arms. “That certainly seems like a risky gamble that only an absolute fool would-”

“Deal!” Stan exclaimed daringly.

“Oh boy…” Dipper sighed as Ford and Pearl shook their heads, all three of them quite concerned about their fate in what would no doubt be a dangerous game.

“Then let the game… BEGIN!” Probabilitor proclaimed, raising his hand before bringing it down and letting his dice roll out of it. The wizard landed a 13, giving him the perfect opportunity to dole out his first move. “Attack!” he ordered his trio of ogres as large, spiked clubs appeared in each of their hands. The creatures rushed towards Dipper, Ford, and Pearl, more than happy to swing their weapons at the group as they narrowly managed to dodge the heavy strikes.

“Oh come on!” Pearl exclaimed in severe annoyance as she tried to summon her spear, only for nothing to emerge from her Gem as a result of Probabilitor’s spell. “As if this entire thing couldn’t get any more aggravating!”

“Oh no!” Steven exclaimed worriedly as he watched this chaos unfold across the game board. “We have to help them!”

“W-what do we do? What are our moves?” Stan asked just as frantically.

“There are no moves!” Dipper shouted up to them as he barely managed to jump out of the way of one of the ogre’s bats. “You make them up!”

“What? Really?” the conman asked, surprised.

“But wait, isn’t this game super complicated?” Mabel asked, just as confused.

“No!” Pearl informed as though it was obvious. “Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons is actually quite simple once you get the hang of it!”

“That’s what I tried to tell you!” Ford added just as intently. “This game involves math, yes, but also risk, enthusiasm, and imagination!”

“Risk?” Stan asked as a smile slowly started to spread across his face.

“Enthusiasm?!” Steven asked, already quite pumped up.

“Imagination?” Mabel finished with a cheerful gasp. “Grunkle Stan, make something up! It’s just like lying!”

“Uh, then I cast, um… shield of… shielding?” Stan ventured, rolling the die and miraculously getting a 14. It was just enough to counter Probabilitor’s roll, and as such, a large, magical shield materialized in front of Dipper, Pearl, and Ford. The ogres’ clubs bounced cleanly off its sturdy surface as the trio crowded behind it, fully protected from any and all harm. “Ha! We’re doing it!” the conman exclaimed in triumph.

That triumph was short lived, however, as Probabilitor quickly made his next roll to cancel Stan’s out. “Shield of shielding reversal spell!” he shouted, and just like that, the magical shield disappeared into thin air, leaving the trio defenseless yet again. They scattered as one of the ogres brought his club down, but fortunately, Steven wasn’t about to leave them unprotected for long.

“I cast, uh… Crazy Fast Lightning Roller Skates!” the young Gem exclaimed, coming up with something off the top of his head as he rolled. Almost as soon as he did, Dipper, Pearl, and Ford all received their own pairs of electrically charged skates, ones that instantly propelled them forward at lighting-fast speeds. The skates were more than enough to get them past the slow, lumbering ogres and their bulky weapons, giving them ample space to prepare themselves to go on the offence as opposed to defense.

“Hot Flamey Sword!” Mabel proclaimed as sharp, fiery swords materialized in the trio’s hands. “Super Hot Flamey Sword!” she added a moment later, and each of the blades extended and the flames surrounding them grew even hotter and brighter.

As the swords solidified themselves, the trio skidded to a stop, their electrified skates still at the ready to send them zooming forward once more. The ogres charged towards them, their expressions fierce as they raised their clubs once again, ready to attack. Only this time, their assault would not go encountered.

“Dipper, stay behind me and Pearl!” Ford ordered his nephew, concerned for his safety amidst this massive beasts. “We’ll handle-” The author was cut off by Dipper’s own battle cry as he swiftly skated forward, flames bursting from his blade as he lashed out in a bold, fast move as he zoomed past one of the ogres. His attack struck true as the creature let out a sharp cry, disappearing into a puff of smoke mere seconds after the flaming sword sliced through it.

“Excellent form, Dipper!” Pearl exclaimed to her pupil brightly. “I can see you’ve been practicing!”

“Thanks!” Dipper called back as he prepared to take on one of the othe ogres. “I have!”

“H-how… where did he learn how to fight like that?” Ford asked, rather amazed at his nephew’s impressive skill with a blade.

“Where do you think?” Pearl asked with a proud smile. “I taught him everything he knows. Now, come on. Dipper can certainly handle himself against those brutes, but it just wouldn’t be fair to let him have all the fun, now would it?”

The author didn’t get much of a chance to respond as the white Gem hurried on ahead, jumping into the fray alongside her pupil. Ford wasn’t far behind and Steven, Mabel, and Stan cheered them on as they worked together to take out the remaining two ogres in record time, much to Probabilitor’s fury.

“No! Drat you! You’ll never outrun my-” the wizard paused as he rolled the dice, grinning wickedly as he made his next move. “Ogre-nado!” With this spell, a massive, spiraling tornado struck up, disembodied ogre heads flying around it as it chased after the trio and blew their swords away. “Ha! It is what it sounds like!” Probabilitor guffawed, watching with twisted delight as the trio ran from the monstrous storm.

“I cast: CENTAURTAUR!” Mabel shouted out of the blue, tossing the dice down onto the board to conjure up a rather nightmarish creature: a centaur with another horse for its head.

“G-goodness! That’s… alarming…” Pearl remarked, rather put off by such a bizarre amalgamation.

“Mabel, I am so confused and so proud right now,” Stan said, sending his niece a bewildered, but warm smile.

“Come on!” Dipper shouted to Pearl and Ford as they all ran for the centaurtaur. Though it was a bit awkward getting onto its double backs, they managed to get a good hold onto the creature long enough for it to carry them away from the approaching ogre-nado as Stan, Mabel, and Steven cheered them on all the while. As the centaurtaur passed into a smaller chamber on the board, both it and the ogre-nado abruptly fell apart, leaving Dipper, Ford, and Pearl safe once more. Or so they thought.

No sooner had the trio picked themselves up off the ground than they suddenly found themselves all pinned to the wall once more, this time by a large, grotesque winged creature with several limbs, tentacles, and two intensely fanged mouths. “Haha, yes!” Probabilitor laughed over his latest move. “I was saving the worst for last!”

“The Impossibeast!” Ford exclaimed in apt surprise. “Hey, I thought they banned this character!”

“Think again!” the wizard grinned deviously. “I’m playing the controversial 1991-1992 edition!”

“W-well this is ok!” Steven reassured as he prepared to roll the dice again. “We’ll just come up with some new weapons and-”

“It’s not that simple,” Pearl interjected fretfully, struggling to break free from the Impossibeast’s iron grip. “From what I remember, this monster is the most powerful creature in the entire game!”

“He can only be defeated by rolling a perfect 38,” Ford added, his tone just as grave. “But the odds of that are-”

“Hey, long odds are what you want when you’re a world class gambler,” Stan cut in with a sly smirk as he took the dice and shook them in his hands. “Alright, Stan, you can do this… Papa needs a new pair of… twins!” Wirth this, the conman tossed the die onto the board, the others taking in a collective deep breath as they hoped that luck would be with him, as the entire game depended on this one singular roll. In an instant that seemed like ages, the die struck the board, rolling across it before finally, fortunately landing on that sought after 38.

“NO!” Probabilitor cried, dumbfounded by disbelief over this effective turn of the tide.

“Ha! Sorry, nerd wizard!” Stan laughed in triumph as Dipper, Pearl, and Ford all let out a shared sigh of relief. “But all your smarts are no match for dumb luck!”

“We cast DEATH MUFFINS!” Mabel and Steven proclaimed in excitable unison, knowing that this move would certainly be for the win. At this, glimmering muffins with an explosive edge to them appeared in each of the trios’ free hands. They didn’t even have to think twice about what to do with them as they simultaneously launched them into the Impossibeast’s wide-open maw, watching with anticipation as the creature swallowed all three of them whole. The effect was almost immediate, for mere seconds later, the death muffins exploded, taking the Impossibeast out along with them in a blinding flash of light.

“Yes!” Stan, Mabel, and Steven cheered in elated unison at this hard-earned win as the game concluded. In a flash, the board disappeared and in its place, Dipper, Ford, and Pearl all reappeared, restored to their normal sizes and clothing with only non-explosive death muffins remaining. An air of celebration rang throughout the group, especially as Steven and Mabel both caught Dipper off guard in a sudden, but welcome hug, glad to have finally rescued him as well as Pearl and Ford.

“The game is, like, over,” the hot elf remarked, shutting the rule book amidst Grenda hugging him tightly, as she had been doing for most of the game. “Excelci-whatever.”

“No!” Probabilitor cried in defeat as him and his companions began to dematerialize. “I’m returning to my own realm! I’m turning into pure math! What are the ooooooooddds?!” The wizard’s final cry hung on the air as he disappeared into equations and grids until nothing remained of him or his wicked intent at all.

“Hmph, serves him right,” Pearl remarked with a satisfied smirk as Steven caught her legs in a sudden embrace, which she gladly returned. “Wanting to crush my gem is one thing, but wanting to use it as a mere seasoning? That was simply absurd.”

“Grunkle Stan, that was amazing!” Dipper exclaimed with a wide smile. “How’d you know you would win?”

“Heh, a gambler never reveals his secrets,” then conman winked as he retrieved the 38 sided die, which he had happened to stick a bit of gum to the side of in order to ensure his perfect 38 roll.

“Man, that really was fun for ages 8 to 80!” Mabel noted with a grin. “Or a million. Or however old you guys are.”

“Yeah, I wish we had tried actually playing the game earlier,” Steven agreed. “I didn’t know what we were missing out on! Electric skates and centaurtaurs and death muffins… What more could anyone want?!”

“Indeed…” Pearl chuckled, though her smile faded somewhat as she turned to Ford. “Er, um… Stanford? I, uh… well I just wanted to say… thank you. Things have been rather… difficult for me lately, but… your offer to pick up our old past time again gave me a much-needed distraction and a reminder of how much fun we used to have together back in the day. I have to admit… I missed this.”

“As did I,” Ford returned her warm grin with complete sincerity. “By the way… I’ve heard about… what happened between you and Garnet. And if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, then please, don’t hesitate to ask.”

The white Gem sighed somewhat sadly at this, wrapping her arms around herself as she looked down briefly. “I’m not sure if there’s anything anyone can do but… I appreciate the thought.”

“Uh, hey, Pearl?” Dipper cut in after this exchange, somewhat hesitant as he averted his teacher’s gaze. “I’m, uh… sorry about the Ancient Sea Blade. I know I promised I’d be carefully with it, but I guess I was kinda reckless back at the shack, and I did what you always tell me not to do in a fight and I acted too quickly and… well, you saw what happened to it…”

“Oh, Dipper,” Pearl laughed once more, her tone gentle and reassuring as she placed a hand on her young pupil’s shoulder. “I’m not angry about the Ancient Sea Blade. I’m just that you’re safe. And that you managed to fend off those ogres as skillfully as you did.”

“Well, I learned from the best,” Dipper shrugged, glad that the white Gem didn’t take the loss of her sword harshly whatsoever.

“You certainly did,” Pearl smiled proudly. “Though of course, this means we’ll have to outfit you with a new sword at some point, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, right?”

Dipper happily nodded in agreement with this, though unbeknownst to him or Pearl, Ford was already busy at work pondering on what the white Gem had just said. “A new sword…” the author muttered to himself, an idea striking him as he thought of what would be an excellent way to show his nephew his genuine appreciation.

“Y’know…” Stan began somewhat sheepishly as he garnished his nephew’s attention next. “I’m sorry to you too, kiddo, for making fun of your game. Sure, it might be too nerdy for me, but its just the right amount of nerdy for you and my brother. And Pearl, I guess, but we all already knew she was a huge nerd.”

“Oh wow, thank you, Stan,” Pearl deadpanned, though all the same, she had a smile on her face.

“Anyway,” the conman continued after sending the white Gem a brief cursory look. “If you wanna hang out with Ford sometimes, I won’t get in your way.”

“Actually, after all that, I think I could use a little mindless fun,” Dipper remarked with a small laugh, more than ready to rest after such a harrowing adventure.

“Guys! We can still watch the second showing of the Dogcopter/Ducktective crossover!” Grenda interjected boisterously. “It’s not too late! Now let’s GO!”

Sure enough, everyone made it back to the Mystery Shack just in time to catch the start of the crossover’s second airing. Steven, Mabel, Grenda, Dipper, Stan, and Soos all crowded into the den, disregarding the hole still present in the wall as they watched Ducktective and Dogcopter get into a heated argument as the third act of the special began.

“Oh no! Dogcopter and Ducktective shouldn’t fight!” Steven cried fretfully as he watched the animals’ subtitled quarrel. “They were getting along so well, what happened?!”

“The usual late in the game misunderstanding,” Soos shook his head disapprovingly. “Ya see it all the time in just about everything these days.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe they’d do something so cliché and predictable!” Mabel huffed, unwittingly spilling her snacks all over Stan’s lap. “We waited so long for this?!”

“What a rip off!” Grenda exclaimed, far from pleased.

“Seriously, what kinda two-bit hack wrote this junk?” Stan asked, though even despite the collective anger in the room, they all still watched the rest of the special intently, all of them secretly curious to see where it might lead.

Later that evening, after the thoughts of insane mathematical wizards and zany animal crossovers had been put to rest, Dipper ended up finding himself down in the basement lab once more as per Ford’s request. While everyone else had been watching the crossover, the author had apparently been collaborating with Pearl on something, but whatever it was seemed to be a surprise that Ford didn’t reveal, at least not immediately. Instead, he greeted his nephew warmly and presented him with the infinity sided die once more before sealing it tight in its case and locking it away in one of the many compartments of the basement’s large glass cabinet.

“Well, this ought to be safe and sound now,” Ford concluded with a satisfied grin. “It’ll be here if you ever need it.”

“Really?” Dipper asked with a frown. “Even after it got us into that huge mess earlier?”

“Eh, we both got carried away,” the author remarked with a hint of warmth in his tone. “I guess we’d both gone a while without a friend.”

Dipper couldn’t help but smile upon hearing this, feeling genuinely grateful for the solidarity and camaraderie that had been unexpectedly given to him by none other than the author of the journals himself. In light of the apparent hints of distance he had been feeling between himself and Mabel and Steven as of late, he appreciated the chance to be in the company of someone who not only shared similar interests to him, but truly respected him for his intelligence and verve. And in the end, not only had he gotten what he had wanted in finding a place for himself under the author’s wizened wing, but he had managed to form a solid, comfortable bond with his newfound great uncle. A bond that he had no intentions of every trying to break any time soon.

“Speaking of which…” Ford continued after a beat of silence, a small, sly smile spreading across his face. “I must say I was quite impressed with your surprising ability with a blade that you demonstrated earlier.”

“Oh, w-well, its nothing,” Dipper remarked somewhat bashfully, not really liking to play up those aforementioned abilities too frequently. “I’m still sort of a beginner after all…”

“Well, from what Pearl told me, you’ve progressed marvelously,” the author said, now holding something he had retrieved from his desk behind his back. “Which is why I asked her to help me put a little… something together for you. And the result of our craftsmanship is something I think you just might like.” Ford could no longer contain his full smile as he held out what he had been hiding for his nephew to finally see. Even upon a first glance, Dipper let out a surprised gasp at the sight of the beautiful falchion sword laid across the author’s outstretched hands, its blade covered by a simple sheath as its hilt presented a comfortable-looking grip and a curvaceous, well-designed guard. Ford noticed his nephew’s hesitance in taking such an exquisite gift, which was why he let out a small chuckle before nodding him on ahead. “Go on, my boy, take it. It is yours after all.”

Dipper mostly let go of his hesitance at this, finally taking the sword and carefully unsheathing it to find that its sharp, metallic blade contained hints of intricate technology to it, with bright lines of circuitry running across it in neat, organized lines. “Whoa…” he mused, his eyes wide with amazement as he looked over it. “It’s… amazing…”

“It certainly is, and in more than just looks too,” Ford remarked proudly, his hands behind his back. “Do you see that small dial on the pommel?” He pointed to said dial, which was divided between four vibrant colors: red, blue, yellow, and green, with the first of those being the one it was apparently set on. “Press down on it and see what happens.”

Curious, Dipper did so, only to gasp in alarm as the circuitry on the sword suddenly lit up, the blade igniting itself in bright, hot flames. “W-whoa!” he exclaimed, holding the fiery sword far out from him. “I-is this supposed to be happening?!”

“Yes, it works exactly as intended!” Ford chimed as he reached to turn the knob to the next setting. As soon as he did, the fire quelled itself, the blade glowing blue as its heat was replaced with a bitterly cold aura of misty frost. “You could say that I was a bit inspired by our rather… fantastical adventure earlier today when designing this. Those ‘flamey swords’ Mabel came up with in particular helped me envision the direction I wanted to go in with this invention. As did Steven’s ‘electric skates’.” With another turn of the dial, the sword burst into bright yellow sparks, lightning cackling from it, but fortunately never leaving the immediate surface of the blade itself. Ford turned the dial one last time, shifting the sword’s color to green as a powerful gust of wind, almost akin to a controlled tornado, struck up around the blade before it ultimately dissipated into nothing as the author pressed the pommel again, shutting the sword down. “It was quite an interesting project to take on in such a short notice, but I think I did a rather exemplary job, if I do say so myself,” Ford continued brightly. “The modifications were entirely of my design, but I do have Pearl to thank for giving me the base sword, as well as thinking up a name for it: the Sword of Seasons. Fitting, isn’t it?”

“The Sword of Seasons…” Dipper repeated with a smile as he looked to his new blade with immense satisfaction before properly sheathing it. “Yes, it is. And thank you so much, Great Uncle Ford. This thing is seriously so cool!”

“Yes, well, I’m glad I could equip you with a new one after what happened today,” Ford said, still beaming. “And of course, I’m sure you’ll use it wisely, so it was more than worth the trouble.” A beat of warmth passed between the pair, one that the author felt was far too short lived as he took the smallest glance at the curtain-covered window behind him. Behind which were secrets that he knew he finally had to come clean about, at least to someone. “Dipper… can I tell you something?” he ventured, his manner turning serious, almost grave even.

“Y-yeah, of course,” Dipper nodded, noting the author’s sudden shift in behavior, his own shifting right along with it.

“You asked me what I was working on earlier. Well…” Ford began, hesitating for a moment before finally pulling back the curtain to reveal the portal on the other side of it. Or rather, what little now remained of it. “I dismantled the portal. To be honest, I should have done this from the very moment Rose told me to years ago… An interdimensional gateway is too dangerous for the world it feeds into. That’s why I was mad at Stan for using it. He saved me, but as I feared, the instability of the machine created this:” The author pulled out a small, spherical glass globe, its appearance fortified but rather unassuming. What was contained within the globe, however, was much more fascinating: a formless, shapeless cloud of what almost looked to be the radiant depths of space itself, swirling within its petite containment unit without any sort of rhyme or reason. It was in a state of constant change, its glow casting light throughout the dimly lit basement as it seemed to pulsate with an unknown power. A power that felt both intriguing and catastrophic all at once. “Its an interdimensional rift,” Ford explained, keeping his voice low as he held onto the base of the glob tightly. “I’ve contained it for now, but its incredibly dangerous, which means it must remain safe and secure and most of all, secret. Dipper, I don’t want you to tell anyone about this. Not Stan, not the Gems, not even your sister. Understand?”

For a moment, the most Dipper could do was remain silent in light of the incredibly heavy weight Ford had just unexpectedly put upon his shoulders. Sure enough, the author had let him in on an incredibly guarded secret, one that could, as far as he knew, put the town, maybe even the entire world at risk if not well kept. But to keep such a secret from those he trusted most, to hide something so monumental and so important from his family, his friends, his sister? If he was perfectly honest with himself, Dipper wasn’t sure if he could withstand that kind of pressure to uphold such a vow of untold silence. And yet… he knew that he would ultimately have to. The amount of genuine trust and reliance Ford was placing in him, to tell him and no one else, not even his old research partners, the Gems, about this rift could not be betrayed. In fact, Dipper refused to let himself betray that trust out of sheer conviction alone. It wasn’t a matter of trying to prove to the author that he could handle this; it was a matter of protecting this incredible important, incredibly fragile object before him. And as far as he knew, the only way he could really protect it, was to remain silent about it, just as Ford had said.

“I—uh, o-of course,” Dipper nodded a moment later, putting as much resolve into his tone as he could as he met the author’s expectant gaze squarely.

Ford nodded in acceptance at this, letting out a small sigh of relief as he pulled the rift a bit closer to him. “Thank you,” he said with genuine gratitude. “In my time, I’ve made many powerful enemies, but I trust you with this secret. Now, get to bed. I have much research to do. And as I said before, take care with that new sword of yours!”

“I will,” Dipper promised just as sincerely, gripping the Sword of Seasons tight to his chest as he turned to head back upstairs, as if it alone could protect the immense secret he had just sworn to keep. “Goodnight, Great Uncle Ford.”

“Goodnight, Dipper,” Ford called back with a warm smile, one that disappeared as soon as his nephew left the room. The author let out a tired sigh, looking down to the rift in his hands once again, its relative weightlessness seemingly making it feel all the more heavy in a way. He knew he ran a risk telling just about anyone at all about this dimensional tear that could just as easily rip its way through existence itself, but he firmly did believe that Dipper would keep this secret well. Just as he readily believed Rose could have if she were still around today, though Ford figured he’d just have to make to with whom he had.

So, the author put the rift away, tucking it safely back in its hidden place in the compartment at his desk, hoping to get some peace of mind with it put out of his sight. But even so, the rift continued radiating its hauntingly beautiful glow, its ever-shifting clusters of stars carrying the fate of existence itself upon them. An existence that could just as easily come to a violent, destructive end if it ever fell into the wrong hands…

Next: 

[talesfromthesnogbox]

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Summary: Richie and his fiance Eddie rush to get to the hospital because their very good friend, and surrogate mother, Beverly, is in labour, and Oh my god it's happening quickly!

Rating: T (for language and mentions of medical procedures)

Word Count: 4235

Notes: Alright guys, so this is totally self-indulgent, and it basically goes like "Crying Richie and Eddie doing skin to skin with their newborn baby." So here it is. Please note, I know barely anything about pregnancy or birth or surrogacy so I guessed a lot and nothing is accurate, but does anyone really care?

aO3

***

Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child

Eddie was a light sleeper. He had no problem waking up when Richie got home from late night gigs, and he was always up within the first chime of his alarm in the morning. But recently, Eddie had taken to sleeping like a baby.

A sharp ring pulled him out of his gentle slumber. He’d been having a pleasant dream, one he was annoyed to be woken up from by what was probably a wrong number. Eddie grumbled looking at his phone, startled by how bright it was momentarily, but soon his annoyance turned to panic.

10 Missed Calls from Ben Hanscom

“Shit…” Eddie mumbled, quickly calling him back. “Dude—”

“Eddie I’ e been calling you for an hour, what the fuck man?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I just… I fell asleep.”

“Richie isn’t picking up either, is he with you?”

Eddie sat up in bed, Richie’s side still empty. “No man, he’s doing some radio show thing tonight, he probably doesn’t have his phone on him. Is everything okay?”

“No… not really. I mean yes, everything’s fine technically, but… but Bev…”

“Shit, what happened, is she okay? How’s her vitals?”

“No, no, nothing bad, it’s just… Eddie, it’s go time.”

“Alright listeners, it’s almost time for Richie Trashmouth Tozier to sign off for the night. We’ve got time for one last call.”

Richie drummed his fingers on the table, adjusting his headphones.

“And it sounds like we’ve got Eddie calling in from Newport Beach.” Rocky, the host shot Richie a look, eyebrows raised. “Eddie, what’s your question for Trashmouth?”

“Hey Rich—”

“Is that Eddie Spaghetti I hear? Hey man, what’s up?” A smile overtook Richie’s face quickly at the sound of his fiancé. He was out publicly now, but he hadn’t quite introduced Eddie to the world. They’d talked about it, but Richie was hesitant to drag Eddie out and open into his world.

“Ben’s been trying to get a hold of yo—a hold of us.”

“Ben? What’s handsome Hanscom want with us?” Richie’s heart was racing.

“It’s Bev… babe, it’s go time.”

“Go time? It’s… oh my god it’s time? I didn’t think that was supposed to happen for another few weeks?”

“Her water just broke, they got to the hospital half an hour ago.” The room was silent for a moment. “Rich, this is happening now!”

Richie’s heart still pounded, but his nerves were hidden behind the giant giddy smile he sported.

“Oh my god Eds, it’s happening. I—I’ve just gotta sign off, but I’ll meet you at the hospital in 20?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the bags, I’ll meet you there.”

“I love you, drive safe.” Richie slipped out, missing the obvious shock on Rocky’s face.

“I love you too babe, I’ll see you soon.”

Richie’s expression was half nervous, half ecstatic.

“Well, well, well, Richie, I think before you actually sign off, you have some explaining to do.” Rocky smiled and looked towards Richie knowingly.

He chuckled nervously, a blush rising in his cheeks. “Umm, yeah. Th-that was Eddie. He’s a friend from back home that moved out here because we’re… well, he’s my um… he’s my fiancé.”

“Trashmouth Tozier is gonna be tying the knot? Good for you man, that’s incredible!” Rocky clapped Richie on the back.

“Thanks Rocky, means a lot. But um, I really do have to sign off. Our good friend Bev is in labour, and um… well… we’re gonna be dads!”

“Woah! Dude, what are you still doing here? Go get your man! But you should come back and tell us all about Eddie and all about fatherhood when you’ve settled in a bit. We’d all love to hear how it’s going.”

“Yeah, for sure! Well, thanks for having me on the show Rocky, I’m gonna go have a baby now.”

Rocky chuckled. “You heard it here first folks, Richie Tozier is ditching the Trashmouth to be a daddy.”

Richie ran into the hospital waiting room and immediately stormed the nurses’ station. “Hi, I’m Ri—”

“Richie!” Eddie ran in moments after him, arms full with an overnight bag, nursing pillow, diaper bag and a bouquet for Bev.

“Hey babe, let me grab that.” He took the pillow and diaper bag from his fiancé’s hands and kissed him lightly.

“You both must be here for Beverly. She’s down the hall in 407.”

“Thank you!” Richie called after the nurse as Eddie pulled him towards the room.

They quickly find room 407, and enter to find Bev moaning, gripping Ben tightly as he stroked her hair back and whispered sweet words in her ear. The two stopped dead in the doorway, watching as their friend rode out the contraction.

“Finally, you guys made it.” Ben said as the pained look on Bev’s face melted into a smile with the end of her contraction.

“Fuck both of you, I hope you’re happy with one kid, cause I’m done after this.” Bev hugged both Eddie and Richie, careful that he IV drip didn’t tangle.

“When do they give you the juice?”

“Yeah, you’ve got to be far enough along for the epidural by now.” Eddie walked around to check Bev’s charts, having no clue what any of it actually meant.

“That’s the problem, she’s too far along for a full epidural. They gave her a little something for the pain, but they think it’ll be over before the full thing even takes.”

“Shit, how far along are you?” Richie took Bev’s hand and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Seven and a half centimeters. It all moved way faster than I thought it would.” Beverly rubbed her belly lovingly.

Richie smiled and pressed a kiss to her head. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee, could be a long night.”

His mind wandered as he looked for the cafeteria, back to that first conversation all those years ago.

 July 1993

“I always wondered what it would be like to be pregnant.” Bev pulled her shirt up a little and rubbed her flat tummy. “Bill wants kids… but I don’t think I want them.” She said taking the joint from Richie. The two of them had gotten rather close since she’d started really dating Bill, close in a way that neither of them had ever been with anyone else.

 “I think I want kids. My mom is always going on about how good I am with my baby cousin, and the neighbor’s kids love me.”

 Beverly giggled. “Well I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl to settle down and procreate with.” Richie’s smile faltered. “What?”

 “N-nothing.” He took the joint back and took a long drag from it. “I-it’s just…” He felt Bev’s hand lovingly stroking his back, calming his shuddering breath. “I know I’m a math nerd not a science nerd, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get a dude pregnant.” His cheeks went red as the silence between them increased. “Bev, I’m gay.”

 Richie closed his eyes as he felt Bev’s arms wrap around him. “Rich, you can still have kids if you’re gay.”

 He looked to his friend, tears shining in his eyes. “You think?”

 “Of course.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “I just said I wanted to be pregnant but not a mother. You can turkey baste me if you want, I’ll have your kids.”

 Richie smiled and kissed her cheek. “I love you Bev.”

 “Love you too, Trashmouth.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “So… would I be wrong to say you have a crush on Eddie then?”

 His cheeks heat up. “Don’t wanna talk about it Ringwald.”

 When Richie arrived back at the room, Eddie was waiting outside. “The OB/GYN is in with Bev now, wanted to give them some privacy.”

Richie nodded, pulling Eddie into his side. “You ready for this, spaghetti?”

“Y-yeah.”

Richie’s head spun quickly to stare at his husband to be skeptically. Eddie’s eyes were trained on the ground. “You didn’t even fight me on the name. What’s wrong Eds? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

“No! No, I’m excited, but… what if I’m not a good dad? What if I can’t give her what she needs? What if I turn out to be just like my mother?”

“Eddie, that’s not gonna happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“It won’t, trust me. You’ll always have your feisty little teenage self, fighting for her on the inside. While your mom was a great lover, she was a real asshole, and I know you remember how shitty that was.”

“Fuck you, the wedding’s off.” Eddie flipped him off, but with a smile.

Richie kissed his cheek tenderly. “I love you too.”

 November 2002

“I can’t go home. I don’t think I can face her.”

 “Eds, chill out. So what, your mom knows you and Myra broke up, not a big deal.” Richie and Eddie had started renting a spacious 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn just a few months earlier.

 “But what if she told my mom the reason why we broke up?”

 “Long distance? Eds, a lot of people break up because they can’t handle distance. You got a job in New York, she didn’t want to move down here. That’s not something you’ll get criticized for at Thanksgiving dinner.”

 “We didn’t break up because of distance you fuckwit, we broke up because I’m gay.”

 Richie’s words died on his tongue. “Wait… what?” Eddie slumped onto the couch with his head in his hands. “Eddie, are you serious?”

 Eddie nodded. He just wanted to curl in a ball and die, not have this conversation.

 “Hey man, it’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

 “Easy for you to say, your parents threw a fucking party for you when you came out. My mother’s going to disown me.”

 “Would that really be such a bad thing?” Eddie looked up and shot Richie a look of fury. “Okay, okay, sorry, that was in bad taste. Look Eds, your mom is an asshole, you don’t need her.”

 “But she’s the only family I’ve got.”

 “Eddie, you know that’s not true. You’ve got the Losers, and you know Maggie and Went love you. And… and you’ve got me.”

 “Thanks Rich.”

 “I’m serious Eds, I’ll always be here. You don’t need her if she won’t accept who you are.”

 “I love you Richie.”

 Richie smiled and pulled Eddie in close. “I love you too Eds.”

 “No, Richie…” He pulled away so he could look at him properly. “I love you.”

Bev’s contractions slowed to a halt, and Richie was grateful for his coffee break as he looked over Ben and Eddie’s sleeping forms.

“Can you believe this is happening?” Bev asked Richie, lacing her fingers with his.

“It’s kinda surreal to tell you the truth. I was thinking about when I came out to you all those years ago, and if you would have told me then what we’re living through right now, I would have laughed in your face.”

She smiled. “I was so head over heels for Bill, I can’t believe I never even looked at Ben.”

“Dude you hit the jackpot. Who knew Ben would be the hot one, I always thought it would be me.” Beverly giggled as she chewed on her bits of ice. “I… Bev, you know I love Ben and all, but is he… god, is he okay with all this?”

 1 Year Earlier

 Richie’s jaw dropped. “Bev… you don’t…”

 Tears sprung to her eyes. “Sweetie, I know I don’t have to, but you want a baby, and I want to help you two.”

 Richie and Eddie had just announced their engagement a few months prior, and had dropped on their friends that they’d started looking into adoption. Beverly couldn’t help but think back to the conversation they’d had all those years earlier.

 “But… but what about you two. I-I can’t help but feel like we’re taking something away from you.”

 “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. We decided years ago that we don’t want a family, and we’re very much at peace with that.” Ben put his arm around Bev and continued. “Richie, I know how close you and Beverly are, and when she brought up that she wanted to do this, I knew that this was the right thing to do.”

 “Only if you want to. Think it over; I’d be honored to carry your child, but only if you’re both comfortable with it.”

“He’s more than okay with it Richie. Trust me, he’s really excited for you. I’m really excited for you.” He knew she was telling him the truth. Bev and Ben went crazy helping Richie and Eddie set up a nursery, baby-proofing their house, buying toys and outfits for their new arrival.

“You’re just excited you won’t have to change diapers.”

She giggled. “Shut up.” Her heart monitor sped up as she felt another contraction come on. “Oh fuck, fuck here it is again.”

Richie clammed up, but took her hand like he saw Ben do before, rubbing her shoulder lightly with his free hand. “You got this girl. You’re doing great Ringwald, I love you.”

Beverly giggled, coming away from her contraction, letting her grip on Richie’s hand loosen.

“Ahh, I see daddy finally made it.” Dr. Burke, Bev’s OB/GYN came in with a myriad of supplies.

“Yeah, both of them are here this time! The other one’s passed out unfortunately.” Richie gestured towards Eddie.

“That’s okay. Figured we’d need some of this stuff in another little bit.” The chipper woman smoothed her lab coat after placing some blankets in a hospital-grade bassinette. “Just came to take a little looksee at how mom’s doing.”

Richie sat up beside Bev again, anxiously awaiting Dr. Burke’s verdict.

“Well, all is looking pretty good. You’re just at 10 centimeters; you’ll probably feel ready to push any minute now.”

A shiver ran through Richie. They were so close to holding their baby in their arms. Eddie stirred from where he was asleep in his chair. “Eds, I’m gonna go call my parents real quick, I’ll be right back.”

He nodded, and Richie ducked out of the room.

It only took two rings for Richie’s mom to pick up. “Hey sweetie, is everything okay? It must be what, five in the morning down where you are?”

“Yeah, I know it’s early. I just—Bev’s in labour.”

Maggie gasped, and Richie could hear a muffled “what?” in the background from his father.

“Oh my goodness! How far along is she? Never mind, we’ve got everything packed, we’ll be on the next flight out to California.”

“Rich!” He turned around to see Eddie’s panicked face peering through the doorway. “They’re gonna have her start pushing soon, Bev wants you with her.”

Maggie gasped through the phone again. “Is that Eds? Give him my love, tell him I’ll see him this afternoon. Richie, I’d better let you go, if she’s pushing soon, then it won’t be long now. I’ll call you when we land. We’ll come straight to the hospital.”

Richie chuckled. “Okay, love you mom. Got any last minute tips?”

“No matter how many times the doctor says it, don’t look between her legs. You’ll never look at a vagina the same again.” Richie’s dad pipes up.

“Well it’s a good think I don’t make a habit of looking at vaginas anyways dad, but thanks, I’ll refrain from staring at my best friend pushing my child out of her bits. Love you guys, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Richie rushed back into the delivery room and took his place beside Bev again.

“How’s grandma and grandpa Tozier?”

“Oh you know, giving me advice that I really didn’t need.” He laughed and patted her hand.

“Went warned you not to look down there, didn’t he.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what he did.”

Bev giggled and laced her fingers with Ben’s.

“Jesus Marsh, never thought I’d see a woman in labour so happy.”

Eddie chimed in, joining Richie at her side. “Drugs finally kicked in, I think she’s a little loopy.”

“Hey, I’m about to push a watermelon out of my body, I think I’m allowed to be a bit loopy.” She huffed out with some difficulty, adjusting her position. “Shit, it’s definitely time.”

Suddenly, it was like the room sprung to action. Dr. Burke’s playful demeanor became slightly more serious as she and the nurses helped prop Bev up into a more comfortable position. Richie was handed a foot, Ben was handed the other, and Eddie took his spot near her head, a damp cloth in hand.

It was all a blur if Richie was being honest. A lot of yelling: words of encouragement from Dr. Burke, sweet nothings from Ben, shouts of effort and pain from Bev. And then suddenly, “Alright, here comes the head!”

Richie’s own curiosity got the better of him, and against his dad’s advice, he looked.

And promptly fainted.

“Richie!” Both Eddie and Bev screamed as they watched him go down. A nurse joined Eddie on the floor, cold towel in hand, helping him up as he was revived.

“Dude, what the fuck!” Eddie felt Richie’s neck, looking for a pulse as he blinked against the bright lights. His face was filled with worry and annoyance, but his tone had no bite to it.

“Why am I on the floor?”

“You’re okay, we see a lot of fathers fainting in the delivery room, nothing we haven’t already dealt with.” The nurse chuckled as she helped Richie up and into a chair, handing him a juice box.

He quickly chugged the juice and motioned to stand back up, but the nurse pushed him down. “It’s probably best you stay seated, just for a few more minutes.”

“B-but, the baby, Bev…”

“Don’t worry, you won’t miss much. The last baby I delivered, mom pushed for a full hour.”

“Jesus.” Richie sat back and swiped a hand over his face, tearing up. “Bev you’re a fucking superstar.”

“Love you too Rich, but I’ll love you more when I get this kid out of me.”

He chuckled, lacing his shaking fingers with Eddie’s.

“Babe, you okay? You went down pretty hard.” Eddie carded his fingers through Richie’s hair with his free hand.

“Don’t I always go down pretty hard?”

“I fucking hate you.” Eddie kissed the crown of his head. “I’m serious, how are you feeling? Do you feel light headed? Do you need something to eat? Does your head hurt?”

“I’m okay. I just saw something that no human being should ever have to see. I think I became more of a feminist today, fuck.” Eddie chuckled. “Dr. Burke, top marks to you and your iron stomach.”

She giggled and gave him a thumbs up.

Eddie took Richie’s spot, taking Bev’s foot in hand, while Richie scooted forward in his chair to take her hand.

It seemed to go on forever, each minute stretched out longer than they’d ever experienced, but before long, a gentle cry was heard from the end of the table.

Bev’s face melted, a cry of relief left her lips as she slumped back against the bed. Richie wanted to support his friend, but couldn’t help but look towards the small screaming human in Dr. Burke’s arms. Once he laid eyes on her, he couldn’t tear them away.

His eyes misted over, and he couldn’t even bother to move his glasses away from his face to wipe them.

“She’s beautiful.” He heard Eddie sigh beside him, his voice sounding watery.

“Would you like to cut the cord?” A nurse pointed a pair of scissors towards the two of them, and Eddie nodded, taking them in hand. Richie’s hands shook as one of his covered both of Eddie’s, and the cord was cut.

Eddie pulled Richie into a tight hug as their daughter was brought away to get cleaned up. “I can’t believe she’s here.”

The nurse hesitated between the two couples before heading over to Eddie and Richie. Richie stepped aside so Eddie could take their daughter first, his hands still shaking ever so slightly.

“Richie, why don’t you pop your shirt off?” Dr. Burke approached him.

“Why doc, you trying to get a piece of this?” The joke was weak, but she laughed anyways.

“Skin to skin contact Richie, so you can properly bond with her.”

“Right, we talked about this at one of Bev’s appointments.” He nodded, pulling his t-shirt over his head. “The tossing a baseball around and letting her eat ice cream for dinner when Papa’s not around doesn’t come till later. See, I remember shit.”

She and Eddie giggled as Eddie passed their baby over to Richie. She was warm in his arms, her small breaths hitting his chest, rustling the tufts of hair there, and she was so, so tiny. For the millionth time that day, Richie was crying.

“Hi there, I’m your daddy. Holy shit you’re so tiny!” His hand covered most of her little back, it was nothing for him to rub the soft, pink skin, worried his rough fingers would hurt her.

Bev was giggling through her tears, and ben snapped photos of the tender moment. “Do you guys have a name for her?”

Eddie nodded. “We talked about it a lot, shockingly the one thing we actually easily agreed on.” Ben thought back to their fight about the nursery colour and chuckled. “We decided on Margaret Hannah Tozier. Maggie for short, after Richie’s mom, and Hannah because it kind of sounded like Hanscom… we wanted as much Marsh and Hanscom in her name as we could.” His voice cracked, seeing Ben tear up. “Ben, I know she’s not yours, but—”

Ben rushed forwards to hug him, cutting Eddie’s speech off. “Thanks man, that means a lot.”

“It’s beautiful.” Bev said as the nurses attended to her.

“We—we were actually hoping you guys would be her godparents.” Eddie asked them meekly.

“Of course, we’d be honored.”

Eventually, the nurses had to take Maggie away from Richie to take her measurements, but he’d made them promise to bring her right back. They all watched as Bev nursed her, whispering sweetly and pushing her beautiful dark hair back.

“Shit, can you believe this?” Eddie sat down beside his fiancé and took his hand. “Who would have thought out of everyone in the Losers club, us and Stan would have babies first?”

“I mean, Stan will always be the most responsible Loser. Even as teenagers I could have told you he’d be the first one to knock someone up on purpose.”

“What do you mean knock someone up on purpose, like plan for a child?” All four of them turned around to see Stan standing in the doorway, gift bag and flowers in hand. “Hey guys!”

“Hey, it’s Stan the Man!” Richie stood up and hugged his first friend, getting choked up at the sight of the little pink bag.

“This is for you guys, well more for the little lady, but she’s stuck relying on you two assholes until she can fend for herself.”

Eddie chuckled, carefully taking the tissue paper out of the bag and showing Richie the adorable little onesie in there.

“Patty knit her some stuff in there too. She’s been knitting sweaters for Sam like crazy, he’s growing like a weed, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re a year and a half old.”

“Aww, thanks dude, this is great.” Eddie clapped him on the back. “You’re officially our first visitor.”

“I knew I would be.”

The group laughed, unfortunately waking Maggie from where she’d fallen asleep against Bev.

“Hold on, I’ve got this great little trick, watch.” Richie stood and whipped off his t-shirt, careening towards the bed.

“Dude, I don’t know what your trick is, but I’m not so sure I want to see it.” Stan said, a smile overtaking his face.

Richie took Maggie in his arms, opening her tight swaddle and put her up to his chest. The feeling of his skin on hers immediately calmed her down.

“Shit, not even Sam was that responsive to skin to skin.”

“Yeah, it’s shocking, but he’s got a gift.” Eddie came up beside Richie and adjusted Maggie’s little hat. “She’s really taken with her daddy.” He stroked her little cheek with his finger, watching her fall asleep against Richie’s chest. Eddie’s eyes were drawn upwards at the sound of a loud sniff from his fiancé. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Richie shook his head, letting his tears fall.

Ben chuckled. “As you can see, Richie just has a lot of feelings.”

“Hey man, it’s been a long day. Trust me, I’ve been there.” Stan smiled, taking a seat beside Bev. “Good to see Richie’s still the emotional one.”

“Dude, let me take her, go blow your nose. You’re gonna get snot all over her.”

“Aaaand Eddie’s still neurotic.” Stan chuckled, shaking his head.

“Fuck man, you’re such a good dad.” Richie handed Maggie over to Eddie and ran to grab a tissue. “I love you so much, I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Can’t wait either dipshit.” Eddie turned to his friends as Richie left for the bathroom. “Oh my god, he’s gonna cry at her kindergarten graduation, isn’t he?”

Stan clapped him on the back. “Couple more months and he’s yours forever.”

“Fuck me.” He replied, sending his friends into a fit of laughter. Truth be told, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Cool, well thanks for sticking around for this complete and utter disaster. Drop a comment or a message or whatever if you liked it, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Just to clear a few things up, in my head, Richie was the "donor" because Eddie didn't want to pass on any potential illnesses.

I was also gonna add a line about Ben setting up Maggie and Sam in the future, but it didn't really fit anywhere, BUT it's a cute thought and also Stan and Richie being reluctant fathers of the groom/bride because that would mean they were actual family would kind of be hilarious? Anyways I'm kind of into that idea so stay tuned for a sequel? Drop a comment maybe and tell me if you'd want that?