#tagging so i can find it later...

[prismatoxic]

this is going to be a very long and very personal post, but i've been thinking about it for a while. it's about my old FP i mention sometimes.

it's almost 4k words long, so. be prepared for that.

i got this question on retrospring a few days after paris blew up on me.

it is a very innocuous message. probably from a friend, maybe from a stranger; i won't know unless they tell me. it's the last question i ever answered on retrospring, though i have gotten harassment since that i did not answer, forcing me to shut off anonymous messages.

the exact timestamp is Sunday, May 29th. the last time paris messaged me was Tuesday, May 24th. i had to go into our old server to find that date. i don't have a good memory, but i also hate to look at anything from their old account. so, the message on retrospring: a seemingly insignificant event, but dated so close to the breakdown that is serves as a much more accessible reminder of how long it's been.

"about 1 year ago" is the immediately visible timestamp on the message.

2 years ago, paris was my best friend.

though, thinking about it, maybe that isn't true. it isn't what i called them. mikee is my best friend. i have never wanted to dethrone them from that spot. that term is special to me. (see, now, why my earlier post mocked myself wanting to be everyone's best friend? i won't even use the title for more than 2 people.)

no, i called paris my "queerplatonic partner" or my "platonic soulmate". qpp, usually. in hindsight it is so blatantly clear that i was obsessed, that i was attached in such an unhealthy way; i did not recognize myself as having BPD at the time. so, in the end, paris was not my qpp, nor any manner of soulmate. they were my "FP", or Favorite Person: a BPD term i would say is akin to "hyperfixation", but on someone you personally know.

i don't want to openly pass judgement on paris here, because that's not why i'm writing this. they're long gone and goading people to be as upset as i am serves no purpose. however, i will say this: they encouraged my behavior. my obsession. i believed, in a sense, that the pedestal i had put them on was in some way parallel to the one they had me on.

there was no pedestal under me, though.

paris and i met sometime in September of 2020. potentially on the 15th, as that is when i created our roleplay server. it was in a proship fandom server for a website i used to moderate. (i don't know if that site is ever going to manage to get finished, now, but i still have hope.) having just gotten very into souyo, i was hunting for roleplay partners, and said as much in some channel or another. paris, at the time, was playing P4G for the very first time. we got to talking. i made our roleplay server, and for two years, we would only ever talk therein.

today, there are 77 threads in that server for different roleplay plots. some are very long; others, very short. i was (and am) unable to focus on any one thing for any real length of time, but paris was accommodating. they were happy to do new plots as i came up with them, and they pitched their own from time to time. most of them are souyo; a handful are for our bancho triplet au; there are some akeshus, and one or two banpegos. we came up with a lot of ideas. a lot of aus. sometimes we'd redo an idea; sometimes we'd branch off from something we'd done before.

we roleplayed every day. i knew their schedule and they knew mine. our responses were quick and snappy, and if we couldn't keep up, we'd talk about it. we talked A LOT. very rarely on the phone or VC, usually in text. they do not live in the US, but we exchanged numbers anyway. we talked so much and so often that it drowned a lot of my other relationships out; i can be very single-minded in my obsessions. i almost lost several people.

i almost lost the love of my life.

in the summer of 2021, paris was taking a trip to the united states to get vaccinated for Covid, and they made plans to stop and see multiple people. in between other plans, they made just enough time to see me for 3 days. they were seeing their older friends for much longer, but i didn't question it, i didn't worry. i was so sure that i was so special to paris. i trusted them so much that the fact that they refused to allow me to interact with their core friend group just bounced right off of me.

in retrospect? ouch.

the visit was fine. paris finally convinced me that i was allowed to be disabled, that i was allowed to rely on support like the electric carts at stores and stuff. they had clashed with devot in the past, but the two of them got along fine for the visit. i was so thrilled; my two most important people, getting along? what could be better? the three of us had lunch and went to ikea. then i hung out at paris's hotel the other two days.

even when they were visiting their other friends, we were talking near-constantly. at some point, my obsession reached a very unfortunate peak, and i decided that if i was that obsessed, clearly i was in love with them. they were (and are, presumably) polyamorous, and i thought maybe i was too.

this isn't a part i want to talk about very much, because it's humiliating and painful. i tried to negotiate an open relationship with devot, and as a result, i almost lost him entirely. it was a very hard time for us, and it made me realize that i loved him way more than i could ever love someone else, even paris. if pursuing paris meant i would lose devot, then i simply wouldn't pursue paris. it wasn't until later that i would truly recognize that it was never romantic love; it was obsession, a need to be a bigger aspect of their life than i was.

paris knew my intentions and knew my ultimate decision. however that made them feel, i can't say. i don't know.

you see, towards the tail end of their trip, they suffered a familial tragedy and their return home was delayed. (or maybe they did make it home, but not for very long? my memory is fuzzy and i absolutely do not want to comb through our server to find it.) their family was in the US and that's where they needed to be for a while. i don't want to go into more detail than that; it was a very personal time for them. we did not talk a lot during it. they said, "i can't carry you right now".

maybe that was a clue as to how they viewed our relationship. i don't know. i assured them i wasn't asking for that, that i could carry them, but all the same they needed their space and i gave it to them. i had permission to send messages with the understanding that there would be no response, so i did.

in lamenting my mental state during all this, jesse (you may recall him being a best friend) suggested to me that maybe i possibly, perhaps, had BPD. he explained it to me and may have also directed me to some sources. it was eye-opening. it forced me to confront my actions and alter my behavior in ways i never realized i needed to do. in terms of paris, however, it came too little, too late.

this part of the story i have told before; i mean, i've told it all before, but i think i was more descriptive at this point. as paris recovered from the tragedy and began returning to normal life, they did so increasingly without me.

conversations in our server were short and uneventful. they were not up to roleplay, which i understood; i searched for other ways for us to connect.

they abandoned their persona 4 twitter and made a new one. they claimed persona 4 had become a trigger. i don't know why, and they never explained. it seemed that the biggest connection we had was now in the past, but i was so deeply, wholeheartedly invested in our relationship that i didn't let it get me down... too much.

the thing about the decline of our relationship is that it was not all at once. it was an accumulation of things, increasingly large signs that they were done with me. the persona 4 abandonment was one of those signs. another, how they were publicly interacting with their older friends, but no longer with me. yet another; they got into no man's sky, but when i finally got my hands on a copy to play with them, they stopped playing. or maybe they just stopped posting about it.

they did not post in our server unless i prompted them first. they did speak in our server with our mutual friend priam, but... just to talk to priam. ask them for advice on the french language, mostly, for a novel they had started to write. anything i said was quickly glossed over (not by priam, though; priam and i are still friends and i love him dearly).

this went on for 7 months.

i know that figure because just before i purged my vent twitter, i went back to the very first post i'd made about the situation. i posted a lot about it... almost every day. i also cried almost every day. i was trying to take it in stride, at least publicly, but in private i was falling apart. paris, who used to like every post on my vent twitter to let me know they were reading them, had stopped doing so. they also never asked me about any of the posts, which they used to do. at some point i figured they had most likely muted my account.

it doesn't feel like it was 7 months. it feels like it was much shorter. how could i have been in so much emotional pain for 7 whole months? i know i was hiding it from everyone as best i could, i didn't even tell my therapist; how could i have done so for so long? but my vent twitter proved the timeline. 7 months.

devot's not blind, of course. he knew something was up. i very rarely told him anything about paris, a point of contention between us. i knew he didn't like them. i didn't want to make it worse. however, i am nothing if not a paper-thin pane of glass when it comes to the phrase, "are you okay?", and eventually i had to tell him why i was so depressed.

he didn't know how to help. the only thing he could do was provide me with the matches; i had to burn the bridge myself.

he told me, early on in my relationship with paris, that they had told him something. (i didn't know they'd spoken outside of my personal server at all.) they told him that my obsession with them wouldn't last, that eventually i would find another interest and move on.

it was a gut-punch. our relationship meant everything to me, but they only saw me as an obsessed little fanboy, at least at the time. and it felt ironic, because they had moved on from me, not the other way around.

paris was (and presumably is) very serious about the privacy of 1 on 1 conversations. they never ever divulged things that happened between them and someone else that seemed in any way "personal." they expected this of others, as well; they told devot what they said in confidence. of course, his loyalties lie with me and absolutely not with them, so he told me anyway.

now, let's step back, for a moment. i want to try and paint a picture of what it was like being in my shoes.

i trusted paris. everything they had ever said to me was taken at face-value and believed. they had proven to me (or so i thought) that they always spoke their mind, were honest, and cared about me very deeply. i trusted them to tell me if something was wrong. in those 7 months, i asked them directly if anything was bad between us. they assured me we were fine. all the while, i knew they were hanging out with their older (real?) friends and generally ignoring me. i knew they had come to loathe the media that brought us together. i knew that they didn't want to play games with me, even their supposed favorite game.

i knew that they were shutting me out.

but paris never communicated this. they were visibly moving on without me, but i trusted them so much that i willfully turned a blind eye to it, waiting for the day they'd be "ready" to talk to me again. then devot told me about what they'd said, and finally, i started to split.

splitting is another BPD term, though it has its uses in general psychology as well. it is primarily a defense mechanism, mostly against The Big BPD Fear, abandonment. splitting is to see a situation and black and white and take a side. there was no longer nuance to the situation; there was paris is my friend, or paris is my enemy.

i was reluctant to let it happen. i resisted it. splitting and my natural empathy are extremely at odds with one another; i tried to convince my brain that paris was still my friend, that there were reasons for all of this. these were conscious thoughts, but the split was not a conscious choice.

i resented paris. either they apologized to me, and fixed things, or they didn't and that was that, it was over. very new to the concept that these were unproductive thoughts, i didn't know how to combat them.

i made a tweet on my vent twitter.

as i said earlier, i had come to assume that paris had simply muted my vent twitter; they had gone through so much, clearly they couldn't carry me, as they said... so i made a vague tweet that wasn't really vague, assuming they probably wouldn't see it anyway.

to paraphrase, as the tweet no longer exists: "you said once that i would get bored of you and move on, but you're the one who moved on from me"

they had not muted my twitter, they were just ignoring it. i know this because they finally messaged me first, and it was about that tweet.

the first volley of messages, sent in our roleplay server, was very clipped but mostly civil. they were disappointed in me for resorting to such a low tactic as to post a passive aggressive tweet instead of coming to them about my concerns.

(i had been having no luck getting them to talk to me; our last exchange in that server was nearly a month prior and lasted about 6 messages. perhaps you can imagine why i didn't think taking my concerns to them would work.)

i was not present when they sent these messages, and didn't get to say anything before they left the server. i did return to my computer not long after, however, and realized, with equal parts regret and relief, that it was over.

then they dm'd me, something they had not done since we very first started talking.

the dms were vicious. they had only gotten angrier after sending the first wave of messages and wanted me to know. devot had betrayed them by telling me what they said, and i betrayed them by repeating it on my vent.

i watched each message roll in, one after the other, numb. i considered replying. i never did.

they called me selfish. hungry for attention. everything was always about me. they said all that happened was they stopped initiating contact, and i had the nerve to claim it was abandonment? in the server, they said they expected me to tell them if i had an issue with them. in the dms, they professed to feelings they had never told me they had towards me.

they said they didn't know what they were even trying to accomplish, that i wouldn't even care. the messages stopped.

their twitter was abandoned; in time, their discord was as well. they never blocked me, simply... vanished. their friend list was wiped clean, their icon blacked out. i think it only didn't happen immediately because they needed to retract their presence from everything they modded and collaborated on. why not delete the discord? i don't know. i'll never know.

it's still there, black icon, no friends, no profile. our exchanges are intact. every other account i ever knew them to have is abandoned as well. if i had to guess, they don't go by "paris" anymore. they told me they had changed before, that "paris" was the longest-running identity they had. they loved being "paris". i'm sorry i ruined it, genuinely.

so, May 24th, 2022. a Tuesday; devot would have been off work. i don't remember if i cried. i think i was just sort of bitterly relieved. i think i said "good riddance" on my vent, after blocking their accounts.

that's the thing about defense mechanisms, i guess. they can work. yet, as time passed, the full weight of it all came bearing down on me. not just the end, but every part before it: the grief of it all, of losing paris, piece by piece until there was nothing left. them claiming that the "only thing" they had done was stop engaging with me first was laughable, but maybe to them, that really was the truth. i said it before: it was an accumulation of things. straws on the camel's back, you know how it goes.

it was never just about the roleplaying, or even the conversations. i tried so hard, for so long, to find something else we could do. i trusted them when they said we were fine. i trusted them when they told me they loved me. i trusted them in every way i could trust a person.

paris said once that they didn't believe in empathy. they said it was essentially "mind reading", that there was no way to know how another person was feeling, so how could you know you felt the same? hyper-empathetic, i stayed quiet. they were smarter than me, and more worldly than me; they probably knew better.

"about 1 year ago," says retrospring. i remember when it said only days. when it said a month. when it said 7 months. (that might be when i made my last post on the subject.)

shortly before that day, i finally told my therapist what was happening. it was my very last appointment with him; i'd been seeing him for 4 years. he was moving onto a private practice and could no longer take my insurance.

i said it had all began about a year after paris and i met, and he posited a theory: perhaps it was the honeymoon phase. those tend to last about a year, he said. maybe they had simply gotten bored. he did not say it unkindly (he was very good at his job, and i trusted him very much), but it did strike a chord in me. i thought maybe it was too simple an explanation, though, and after all, we were qpps. how could they just get bored?

i don't think we were qpps at that point. (arguably, we never were, but as a label we shared, i think they had agreed on it at least for a while.)

the explosion a scant few days later did not feel like boredom, it felt like vitriol. like resentment. it felt like they had wanted to say those things for a long time. but it had been 7 months since the possible end of this "honeymoon phase," so maybe. i guess i'll never know.

i have become very bad at keeping up with roleplay. even if it's the same short style, or even if they let me switch between ideas constantly. even if it's souyo. even if they're my friend. even if i'm having a great time. at some point, the mental block rises up, and even though i'm not thinking about paris, i know that's where it came from. devot is the only one largely immune to this effect; we still roleplay constantly, though i do at times fall into slumps even so.

i keep trying; i love to roleplay. it's my favorite hobby. but every time i try, it stops dead by my own hand. even if i'm actively trying to prevent it.

...but otherwise, i think i'm doing better.

my approach to relationships is different. i know what i'm capable of, if i get carried away. i'm careful, and i try to keep track of my emotions about a person. i also trust people a lot less, and fear abandonment a lot more, but i'm aware of it and trying to do something about it.

devot and i are doing much better; he doesn't have to compete with anyone anymore. i have a lot more time and emotional energy for him. i love him very much, and i'm so grateful he stuck with me. i'd be nowhere without him.

the roleplay server i made for myself and paris sits at the very bottom of my server list, tucked into a folder with the server we shared with priam. i don't want to lose the memories, but i never even look at them, so it probably doesn't matter either way. maybe someday i'll use some of those old ideas. i already did, with one; one of our roleplays was the basis for my oc nate, who i made well after paris was gone.

i do not ever want to see or speak to paris again. luckily, the feeling is most certainly mutual.

tomorrow, in about 12 hours, i will be speaking to my new therapist. he is the second i have had since the one i had for 4 years, and the first since then that i actually think i mesh well with. i think i'll tell him all of this. hell, i might even read the post to him. we'll see.

is there a point to all of this? kind of. mostly it's for me, a retrospective of what happened. it's also just informative for the people closest to me who i have likely not told everything in this much detail. if you read it and get something out of it, that's great.

it's been "about 1 year," according to retrospring. i think i like that metric better than the exact timestamps of paris's final messages to me that discord gives. the era of "tox and paris" burned bright and burned hard, and died out very quickly. it's probably for the best. i am healing, and i don't know if i'd have ever gotten better if they kept me around. there is a long way to go, but... i have hope, honestly. i think i'll be okay.

[aphel1on]

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

[kentucky-fried-thea]

you call them flop posts but I call them reaching my target demographic: whichever mutuals are active rn

[arttuff]

theyre chillin

[hungarianmudkip69]

My dad got himself a cake for his birthday today

[curapicas]

does anyone have thoughts on the focus switching to Kabru, like.

At this point we and Kabru both see Laios begin to put together a plan to take down the mad magician, and Marcille is essential in this. But perceptive as Kabru is, he's got to know that this is also for Marcille' sake.

Sure she'll be an advisor together with him in the future, but here, all he saw from her was a spell backfiring into a monster and her begging people to not hurt someone who's murdering-a-ton. He doesn't have a high opinion of her priorities, even if he doesn't wish ill on her. My first thought was that Laios defense of her would be a bit frustrating for Kabru, even. Though he has an equally low opinion of the canaries' methods, and Shuro's report would force their involvement

But honestly, his past disgust with Marcille doesn't factor in this at all. This might be the first time Kabru is seeing how seriously Laios takes both defending his plans and a friend. Against someone Laios respects, no less! Considering what Kabru's own objectives are (a mission, but not progressing enough to formulate well-thought plans), as well as his most selfish desire is (companionship), I wonder if seeing this didn't affect him, a little. Maybe as an inspiration? Or as kinship?

After all, isn't “this person is both an important part of this plan and important to ME, and I won't let you kill them” reminiscent of another dynamic? Even if in this moment, he's not there yet.

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

Holy shit they made the cowkini print into an animal

[anastacialy]

tracked down this clip just because of this post! have jokes from skizz and scar

[hoosbandewan]

As many of you know, I've been keeping tabs on Aemond's screen time this season of HotD. With the finale now aired, I can share the final tally.

Episode 1 - 158 seconds / 2.63 minutes

Episode 2 - 123 seconds / 2.05 minutes

Episode 3 - 96 seconds / 1.6 minutes

Episode 4 - 159 seconds / 2.65 minutes

Episode 5 - 168 seconds / 2.8 minutes

Episode 6 - 325 seconds / 5.42 minutes

Episode 7 - 93 seconds / 1.55 minutes

Episode 8 - 200 seconds / 3.33 minutes

1,322 seconds / 22.03 minutes

[signanothername]

Environment practice

Kinda just how i think Killer’s room would look like (a lil bit hdfhfjfj) but also just me messing around

[raven]

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[nicollekidman]

shadow & bone cast, behind the scenes of episode eight (via jessie mei li’s instagram)

[tswwwit]

Cipher's Personal Portable Portal

'How they meet' won the poll!

So just to make things fully contextualized, as far as they're gonna be - here's the full first chunk of this stupidly long fic I'm writing.

I hope you enjoy!

Standing in the wreckage of the burnt-out building, Dipper wishes he didn’t know who did it.

Anyone else would have left some trace sign. A scrape of blood, a hint of burnt hair. A friggin’ decent eyewitness report, even.

But here, like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that - there's absolutely zero traces. No video footage, nobody around at the time of the crime. Not even footprints.

Dipper kicks one of the remaining supports, sending a puff of charcoal up from the impact. 

If he knew the bastard’s name, he’d curse it all to hell.

With a sigh of exhaustion, Dipper sits on a chunk of scorched foundation. He pulls his shoe off to tip the ashes out of it; there’s enough that the resulting cloud leaves him coughing. 

Around him, the scoured west wing of the museum is silent, still, and empty. A grey-black skeleton of its former self, filled with dust and charcoal.

This arson is yet another one in a very, very long line of crimes. They’re not just ‘unrelated incidents’, or ‘bizarre coincidences’. Dipper’s not ‘being paranoid’ or ‘coming up with some pretty weird conspiracy theories’. 

There’s only one person who could manage this. The same guy who turned a bank upside down - literally -  and the same one who impaled a mob boss on an oversized silly straw and gave tails to half of a household last week.

It’s all connected.

Each crime is marked with the same style, mostly by how remarkably weird they are. Along with a thread of magic, distinct in its composition. One so distinctive that it's almost a flavor. Though admittedly, without certain magical analysis, it’s pretty hard to detect. 

And if other freelance magicians would take the time and look at Dipper’s notes, maybe one of them would help find this asshole.

Dipper stalks through the burned building, fists balled in his pockets. He stumbles over a fallen support column, and nearly trips before he makes a hopping retreat back. 

Though the culprit has been at his game - whatever ‘game’ that is - for a good half a year now, this is the most destructive ‘incident’ so far. Nobody was hurt, since it happened in the middle of the night. The one relief from a terrible crime, that only objects were obliterated in the process - 

But the ashes speak for themselves.

Here, there’s nothing left.

He breathes in slowly. Then regrets the attempt at calming himself as he coughs again.

Whatever the culprit’s initial motive was, it hasn’t lasted. He’s grown not only in ambition, but also in his abilities. Things are escalating at a rate Dipper doesn’t like to think about.

Someone has to get to the bottom of this. Before it’s too late. Dipper’s got his number, metaphorically speaking, so. Well, might as well be him. 

And when he proves that all of this chaos was created by the same person - 

Well. A little boost to his meager reputation couldn’t hurt. Maybe a few medals and accolades. There isn’t a trophy for best monster hunter, but he can imagine standing on a podium and -

Dipper waves that thought off, swearing under his breath. Stupid. He has better things to focus on.

He’s the only freelancer on the case. Definitely the only one taking this seriously, the only one who thinks it’s the same person to begin with -  and even he’s starting to have some doubts about ever finding the bastard. 

Six months of tracking this guy down, and what does he have to show for it? A ramshackle compilation of incidents, a vague feeling of magic, and a description that could fit any bottle-blond actor with bad fashion sense. Scraps. He might as well pin them up and connect them with red string for all the good it does him.

Another kick sends Dipper hopping back, clutching his foot with a swear. He winces at the hole in the tip, he nearly punctured his foot on a nail.

Just his luck. Wrong place, wrong time, always just barely avoiding disaster. Dipper shows up whenever there’s an event, he’s got the means to follow the guy - but he’s always just a little too late.

Even worse, lately the guy’s been picking places… not at random, exactly. More like he causes trouble wherever it’d be the most annoying to follow.

The culprit must know someone is on his trail. But he’s not making it impossible to keep up, or even majorly difficult for a determined pursuer. Just really, really irritating, like making moves at three in the morning, or pausing just long enough for someone to catch up, then heading right back where he came from. At one point Dipper had to trudge through a literal swamp, only to find that bastard had sauntered in by baking himself a neat little trail right through the damn thing. There wasn’t even footprints to follow.

It’s a repeated point in Dipper’s notes. Whoever this is, they’re a total, absolute dick.

With a sigh, Dipper runs his fingers through the ash on the museum’s floor. Not a single thing is left beyond the shattered glass of some display cases, and the charred remains of the building. Even the enchanted metal tools have been melted into slag. 

The day before yesterday, he could tell something was up. Building energy, something that felt like it was made by the culprit. Something with the twinge of a powerful curse, coiled and being wound up like a spring. 

Dipper spent that evening convincing - okay, maybe also bribing, thank you Stan for the idea - the museum to let him borrow materials. The day after that, he spent all night, morning, and most of the afternoon running around slapping up anti-curse emblems. The entire south of the city warded, in a fine careful net of spellcraft. The work was exhausting. Both in running around, and in the amount of magic he’d needed to use.

But it was worth it. That evening, in the quiet and very uncursed city, all the emblems activated. Dipper would have sworn he sensed someone in the distance, cursing his own name. That night he went to bed with a smug sense of satisfaction, floating on a cloud of triumph.

Which is probably why the bastard burned down the museum next.

With another sigh, Dipper tucks his notebook back into his knapsack. He’s gleaned all he’s going to for today; in the fading evening light, searching more is pointless.

So much for all the magical artifacts. Most of those had come in really useful in messing with the guy. 

…How the hell did the culprit know where they came from, though? He’d need a near encyclopedic knowledge of artifacts to know which ones Dipper used, then track them back to their origin. 

Or maybe he just searched on the internet. It’s hard to tell.

Dipper just wishes there were more clues. But just like every other incident, the guy up and freakin’ vanished.

No human can disappear like that without some very irresponsible use of power. That hope is one Dipper’s hanging his hat on. After six months? He has to be reaching his limits. He’ll burn himself out before he can manage too many more incidents. Maybe Dipper will find him by stumbling on his withered, dissolving corpse.

Whoever this is is pretty strong, but no power is infinite. He can’t hide forever.

It can’t be too much longer. Won’t be. Dipper has a plan, he’s gotten really close, and - He’s good at his job, damn it. He knows he is. 

Taking a deep, slow breath, Dipper lets it out. Patience is the name of the game here. He’s just gotta keep moving.

One day, he’s going to catch up with that bastard. He’ll see the guy in the flesh. Then he’ll grab that stupid dick before he can escape, again, and wipe that presumably smug look off his probably ugly face.

Turning around one last time, Dipper surveys the destruction, stuffs his hands in his pockets - and pauses. 

A speck of light glints in the pile of ash. The last bit of evening sun, shining off a metallic surface.

Alert with surprise, Dipper scrambles over to the pile. Kneeling down, he brushes the dust carefully aside, careful not to disturb anything fragile that might shatter if handled wrong. 

One thing did survive. Thank fuck, it’s not an absolute total loss. Just, uh… Ninety-nine percent of it.

He scuffles through the still-warm ashes, cupping his palms underneath the lump and lifting it from its bed. The motion sends white puff rising up as ash slips away from the artifact.

A small black, squarish thing rests on the pile, a bit larger than both his palms put together. The material is faintly warm from residual heat, insulated by the ash it laid in - and there’s not a mark on it. Not even a scratch. 

Dipper turns the artifact over in his hands with a frown. The shining black surface reveals no obvious buttons or secrets. Just a kind of phone-ish shape, though more square and squat. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say a guest dropped it on the rush to escape. 

The fact that it’s still intact though. Nearly glowing with magic, a tremulous feeling under his palms - this is not dropped by some clumsy tourist. Not even Ford could put this together.

 Wiping at the object with his sleeve, Dipper manages to clean off most of the smooth surface. On one of the sides, dust clings to the thinnest of engravings. The very faint outline of an equilateral triangle. No runes or other magical scribing, just… a shape.

Dipper thinks back but - no, he doesn’t remember seeing this in the collection. A quick check online reveals…

Basically nothing. There are - were - a bunch of stone and metal slabs in the archives, all described so poorly as to be useless. Some are even bunched up in groups. ‘Magical slab 1-24’ and ‘Metal artifact 1-78’, no description involved.

Not surprising. Probably dug up in some mass excavation site, transported here, then never really looked at again. The bulk nature of the shipment means it was overlooked, its magical properties never discovered.

After today, he’s just glad that even one item escaped this onslaught. 

The other artifacts must not have had much to them. But some magical property in this artifact’s making must have saved it from the blaze. Fireproofing, perhaps? Against weird fire? That’s unusual. Maybe even unique.

As the only survivor, it really needs investigating. 

Dipper glances over his shoulder, then around. With everyone evacuated, it’s quiet in the rubble. Nobody here would notice if, say… a clue wandered off.

The artifact slips easily into his pocket. The shape conveniently looks just like a phone, even if the shape’s a bit off. Not something that would attract any attention.

Whistling nonchalantly, ducking out of the way of local law enforcement and any onlookers - Dipper makes his escape. 

Another day of pursuit. Another scene of disaster, the culprit there and gone in the blink of an eye. 

He’ll be up to something new, next. Never the same thing twice, never in the same place. 

Dipper will follow in his evil tracks, of course. But for tonight - his fate is another crappy hotel room. 

He ditches his backpack by the door, slumping against the wall and its chipped paint. He could start going through his notes, and the pictures of the arson. Put in more work, find further connections - 

But it’s been a long day, and he’s tired. He might be magical, but he’s only got so much to work with. A reasonable night’s sleep, if he can manage, will make the task loom less horribly over his tired brain.

With a sigh, he drops back on the mattress. There’s some bounce to it, springs squeaking like they’re full of mice. Hell, maybe they are. The type of room he can afford isn’t exactly decadent.

That, though, should be temporary. Dipper’s career is only just starting; freelancers in the ‘solving magical problems’ scene don’t get great rates. Especially as a beginner. Definitely without a partner; it makes him look super young. Like he’s just starting out, fresh-faced and not having any inroads.

Because this field is really stupid, and doesn’t pay attention to results. Dipper’s been fine on his own for years, and he’s done really cool things without that ‘networking’ crap. 

All by himself. Totally cool with that, because Dipper’s a cool guy, sometimes. If Mabel hypes him up enough on one of their phone calls, he almost believes it too.

Though it would be nice to have some backup, it’s hard to find someone who really gets the job. Or does it in the way that Dipper goes about it. The number of people who are willing to take long treks in hyper-magical territory to search for an obscure clue, or set up really complicated traps for  dangerous monsters, or talk over high-level magical theory while sitting in the rain all night just to get one body-snatcher are…

Well, besides Ford, who recently retired, there aren��t any. Only Dipper himself.

One day, things are going to change for him. All his effort will pay off. If he keeps solving mysteries, and fighting monsters, he’ll forge a reputation as someone who always gets the job done. No matter how hard it is, he can handle it. The work is picking up, too. The last six months have shown the biggest series of magical incidents in decades. 

And he’s gonna be the one to get to the bottom of it.

Dipper Pines, the guy who proved it’s all connected. He’ll have it laid out in facts and math, all the evidence. They’re all gonna see that he was totally right.

Once he finally gets this guy, everything’s going to start looking up. 

The sheets rustle as Dipper settles back, holding the artifact up over himself. He stares into the black surface, and a slightly distorted reflection narrows its eyes back at him. 

A good mystery always intrigues him. This one should take his mind off the other, irritating one for a while.

The only remaining object from the fire is clean and smooth. A mysterious creation, of unknown purpose. Clearly riddled with magic, too; Dipper feels it running just under the surface like a rapid current. It gives the artifact a weight that has nothing to do with mass. 

Power.

Did the criminal see this artifact, still intact after all the other magical objects were gone? Did he try to destroy it too, and fail? Or simply not notice he’d missed one out of thousands?

Whatever it is, it’s got a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Dipper casts a quick identifier, which comes back with nothing. He’s not surprised. That’s the first thing anyone would try. If it was that simple, he’d already have the full description off the site. 

With a shrug, he traces another set of runes, his own version, adding a little more oomph behind it - 

And the magic leaps back instantly, with the bizarre sensation of a bouncy ball hitting concrete.

“Huh,” Dipper says, thoughtfully. He sits up, hunching over the slab in his hands. “Now that’s new.”

A more subtle approach, then. Tracing the lines of energy with the barest brush of magic upon magic reveals something deeply complex. Thin layers twist together deep under the surface, building an entire circulatory system. Dipper has to put it down for a moment, suddenly worried that it is organic. 

When a cautious prod doesn’t get a response, he relaxes. Not fleshy, just complicated. Which also proves he was right earlier - the artifact’s just as powerful as he’d thought. The spellcraft is unlike anything he’s ever seen. 

Dipper rubs his hands together, starting to smile. 

Even if he doesn’t find the guy he’s after, figuring this out could be a heck of a win.

Several attempts later, he’s beginning to get why this bastard brick got tossed in with all the other junk. 

Nothing here is working. It simply deflects. Standard spells poing off of it like rubber, while giving his magical senses an odd, back-of-the brain afterimage of a circle with a slash through it; a firm ‘nah’. 

Dipper nearly chucks the thing across the room in frustration, before shutting his eyes and taking several, calming breaths. 

Okay, weird thing, weird enchantment. The ordinary stuff won’t work. The magical logic is… twisted in a way that leaves it incompatible with most everything. He’ll have to find a different approach. 

“What are you?” Dipper says, low and frustrated. He gives the artifact a shake, as if he can knock the secrets out like a rock from a shoe. “What secrets are you hiding in there?” 

No response, not that he expected one. With a wry smile, he taps the sleek surface with a finger, twice. “C’mon, man. Talk to me.” 

Huge yellow letters flash onto the black surface. 

HEY

Dipper throws the artifact, a bit awkwardly since he’s lying on his back. It sails in the air in a high thin arc, landing with a thump between his legs. He scoots rapidly backward, sheets pulling up behind him. 

The artifact lies where it landed, an unmoving brick.  There’s magic in the air now, but no sense of any spell building, ready to unleash power to blow his face off. The latent spellcraft of the artifact has just been activated.

More text displays on the surface, bare except for the glowing letters. 

To the jerk that’s swiped my private stuff: You got some nerve! I expect this back by interdimensional mail in a week, or trust me - there will be consequences.

Dipper waits a full minute before he lets go of the headboard. Tentatively, he kneels near the…

 Is this a phone? 

Clearly it’s a communication device of some sort, with the freaking text messages. A phone is the obvious equivalent, only - he thought it looked far older than that, something way before mobile phones. Possible ancient. Is that a coincidence, maybe, or is it secretly modern?

Dipper taps the ‘screen’, just below the glowing words. To his surprise, there’s actually a keyboard, what the hell. This thing keeps getting weirder.

Since it hasn’t already thrown a horrible curse at him, or burst into flames - it’s reasonably safe to assume that it’s simply ‘on’. Not ‘explosive’. 

With hands that are definitely not shaking, he picks it up, and types,

Who is this? 

His own text pops up in blue. A strange contrast to the yellow, but he’s guessing it’s for convenience - there’s no bubbles to tell who’s said what otherwise.

A few seconds of nervous waiting later, there’s a response. 

Oh hey, you answered! Well, human - You’re talking to the one and only Bill Cipher, Dream Demon, all-powerful master of the Mindscape! I’d say it’s nice to meet ya but you’re not supposed to have a direct line to me!

Dipper raises an eyebrow. 

Now that’s one hell of an introduction. It might even have been interesting, if it didn’t smell of complete bullshit. 

Complicated spellwork, sure. Incomprehensible architecture? Maybe. Dipper can admit it; he’s never seen anything with a web of spells on it this complex, in such small of a package.

But the idea that Dipper just stumbled onto a demonic artifact of all things. One that wasn’t instantly detected, recorded, then ritually destroyed is…

Someone’s fucking with him. 

Dipper rolls his eyes as he types back,

Really? Demon? You can’t expect me to believe that. 

What, you calling me a liar? ‘Cause I am, but not about this! I got better things to mislead mortals about. This is my property, not something for your grubby mortal mitts.

Dipper snorts. Guess this person’s sticking with the bit. Obviously whoever created this would want it back - but too bad. Whether they’re delusional, stupid, or just a flat-out liar, they’re really good at enchanting. It’d be a waste not to study their work. 

He lies back on the bed as he replies.

Sure, have fun roleplaying, or whatever, it doesn’t make a difference. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

ARE YOU CALLING ME A LOSER. MORTAL.

Hmm, I’m detecting a certain amount of ‘crying about it’, so. Yeah. Suck it, loser.

Smirking, Dipper settles back - then his half-smile drops, as he holds the ‘phone’ a little further away from himself. 

Though the blue fire building up in the screen looks like a bad sticker effect, the artifact’s also getting a alarmingly warm. It vibrates in his hands - then suddenly stops, cooling down. 

Ha! Alright, alright, I admit - you got some balls.

Maybe you’ll change your tune once you REALLY know what you’re dealing with! Might wanna check the connection, if you’re even capable of it! Mortal magic doesn’t reach across dimensions!

With a grimace, Dipper taps his fingers on the phone. It’s slightly cooler now, but still worryingly reactive to… whatever happened on the other end. 

Damn. Whoever this is, they’re not only really really good at enchanting, they’re also pretty confident that tracking them down won’t spoil their game. The confidence exuding from this ‘Bill’s’ words feels genuine.

Honestly, though, the suggestion is a good one. Dipper should have tried to trace the call the second he knew someone else was on the line. 

Maybe ‘Bill’ thinks he won’t manage to find him. Joke’s on him, though; Dipper’s amazing at finding stuff. He’s the best tracker of magical anything in years. Maybe decades. With a solid, stable connection right in front of him? Hell, he could do this one in his sleep. 

Time to call the bluff.

He casts the tracing spell, though it takes longer than usual. A few gestures and muttered ritual aren’t gonna cut it; he has to improvise around the strange construction of the enchantment. Even trailing along the magic seems harder than usual, like it resists mixing with his own, and it takes him a few attempts to match the signal. 

Once he finds the right way to tune it… the lead snaps along the already-existing connection, and zips away to find its source.

The line extends out from the shabby hotel room, a plucked string in Dipper’s senses. It twists around the phone, rising slowly. Invisibly passing through the walls and the - 

Ceiling? Dipper looks up on instinct, even though nothing is visible.

From there it swirls around in the air like a silly straw on steroids, and then - out, very far, in a way that isn’t up or down or left or right, just  

Away.

Dipper has to cut off the tracing spell before vertigo has him reeling. The swirling sense of standing on top of a skyscraper is followed by a flip in his stomach. That he’s using a device he barely understands that reaches out into something even more incomprehensible.

He drops the phone-artifact, trying to clear his head by shaking it rapidly. 

That’s not nearby. Not on this planet. Possibly, genuinely, not even in this dimension. 

Shit. Bill wasn’t bluffing.

Dipper wipes sweating palms on the sheets. To pick up the phone again takes an effort, willing himself to grasp it in unsteady hands.

A demon. 

All the monsters he’s fought, curses he’s broken, years of work tucked into his belt, and he’s never seen one of those. 

Demons are dangerous, evil, and very, very powerful. Consorting with them is by all accounts a terrible idea. He should never have picked this up. He should hang up, and throw the damn artifact out the window, hoping that nobody else makes as dumb a mistake as he just did. 

On the screen, there’s a long long scroll of yellow letters, filling the entire surface. ‘HA HA HA HA’ over and over and over again. 

Before he can think better of it, Dipper starts a response. He’s halfway through a sentence - what the fuck, that’s not funny- before he pauses.

Terrible evil monster. Stupid powerful. Probably Bill sensed the tracing of the connection, like he did with Dipper’s other testing. Bill wanted the result startle him. Because he thinks it’s funny.

Dipper grits his teeth, and glares at the screen. 

Actually, screw this guy. Dipper’s keeping the stupid phone. If for no other reason than spite. This ‘Bill’ guy seems pretty full of himself, like he’s totally above some human. He’s in for a bad time, then, because Dipper’s not going to let one little surprise scare him off.

Besides.  The average guy would get into horrible, even deadly trouble, whereas Dipper… sort of knows what he’s doing.  No, he is good at his job. Finding secrets, solving mysteries, thwarting evil jerks who think they’re oh-so-hilarious, the whole shebang. He does it all.

Taking another breath, hissing through clenched teeth - Dipper lets it out. Losing his temper isn’t going to help deal with an extradimensional being. He has to be careful.

He thinks for a long moment before he responds. 

Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Maybe. Then you should know I didn’t steal your… whatever this is. I found it lying around, and I just. Got kind of curious. 

HA HA HA! Of course you were! Careful with that impulse, kid, it kills more than just cats!

A jerk who definitely thinks he’s hilarious. Dipper rolls his eyes, then, rather pettily, decides to ignore that statement. 

More pressing questions take the lead. Like what the fuck he’s holding right now, and if there are any other nasty tricks in store. A little bit of him, bubbling under the surface, wonders what being a demon is like. What they get up to, common habits. Ways they could be tracked down and, y’know, defeated, maybe. 

Theoretically, he’s got a line to a bunch of innocent, totally not-thwarting-related information that could be super useful to someone trying to, maybe, be a super cool monster-fighter.

Dipper backspaces a bunch over some poorly thought out questions. First things first. Like what the hell he’s holding right now.

So. What is this?

Good question! The gadget you’re poking at with your sweaty meat-paws is paired to the one I have here at my place. A little one-on-one communication assistant, if you will. Once you started groping around with your magic, it wasn’t hard to tell someone had picked it up!

Dipper raises an eyebrow. Though he already has an idea… a little confirmation never hurts. 

Like, you got a notification? Or literally felt?

The latter! Kinda like smell, but by touching things with your eyeballs. And with all your prodding around you might as well have been stinking up the place! Your spells aren’t real subtle!

Hey, they’re subtle! Having weird extra senses is just cheating.

Sucks to be human, then! In that you suck at everything! What’s a LOSER like you gonna do about it?

Dipper nearly throws the stupid artifact again - but he holds back, gripping it tight. Instead he sits up, leaning down and hauling his backpack up from the side of the bed. 

Maybe Bill thinks he can’t do anything. That he’s some ignorant nobody, who doesn’t have any real skills or talent or doesn’t have any friends - but he’s got that wrong. Dipper’s not a loser. Bill’s not getting away with that bullshit.

One quick unzip and a bit of rifling around later, he finds what he was looking for. Carefully, Dipper bounces the heft of a flashlight battery in his hand. Shutting his eyes, he focuses on crafting a quick working.

Magic is all about energy, and its direction. Focusing power, conveying it from one place to another. Pushing anything across dimensions would take impossible amounts of energy, stuff Dipper doesn’t have. If it weren’t for a very convenient connection, already in his hand.

Dipper has nothing on hand to actually exorcise the guy - he’s not sure that’s even possible when Bill’s where he should be - but retribution is in order.

More text lines appear on the artifact. He ignores them. Changing this up to work with the demon device is a challenge, but after figuring out how to alter the tracking spell changing this one up isn’t hard. He adjusts the flow of magic this way, into the tangle of not-veins in the device that way, finishes the chant-

Then touches his tongue to the battery.

The jolt passes through him painlessly, following the spell. It zips along his nerves, down into his hand and from there - into the artifact itself. 

Where it should, theoretically end up right at that bastard.

Dipper tosses the battery back into his backpack. Picking up the ‘phone’, hunching over to stare at the screen. 

That worked. He felt the energy move… unless he got the math wrong. Or a detail of his spell. Or maybe demons are immune to electricity, and he just did something totally pointless. 

God. It might even prove Bill right, and wouldn’t that be the worst - 

The next line of text comes in. 

What the hell? A joy buzzer? That’s some real petty prank stuff! You seriously pulled that bullshit? And across dimensions?

A tense pause. Dipper taps the phone, checking for it heating up again - but another line pops up after a few seconds.

Y’know what, kid? I think I might actually like you! You’re FEISTY.

Dipper nearly does a double-take. 

But no, that - what? Aren’t demons supposed to be vengeful? He was half-sure he’d have to chuck the phone out the window before it exploded in his hands. 

In fact, you’re in luck! ‘Cause I’m pretty bored, and I can totally show you how to improve that jinx of yours! If you can keep up with a little theory, that is.

Because that’s not suspicious or anything. Conversation with a demon can only lead to ruin and disaster. He should absolutely, definitely stop this right in its tracks.

Still, Dipper shrugs, and types, 

Try me.

[lastoneout]

saw someone else do this so I'm doing a worse version:

I'm not trying to broaden any horizons here or flex with some classic/niche songs, I'm just having fun so these songs are probably ones people already know of/basic, but I'll reveal them after the week is up, have fun :D

[washmchineheart]

realizing that cassian is the “I can fix her” and eris is the “I can make her so much worse” when it comes to nesta