#will add big bro gore later

[the-creature-22]

The adopted daughter

Uncle Xelzaz

The dad that stepped up

And the Mother that is older than everyone present.

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,204

Jade: Pester a Dave.

Author commentary: I almost took offense at the remark "something ugly made by a jackass" as a matter of reflex, until I realized Dave wasn't talking about Homestuck. He was talking about Karkat's shipping grid. Except, wait, I made that too. I'm offended all over again by Dave. Who is me. Currently I'm lounging in a wheelbarrow, which is very cheerfully being handled by my youth pastor, who's pushing it in the direction of a big, sturdy building, which I'm told is the place where they keep all the sane people. He's a swell guy.

Sometimes when somebody offers condolences because someone you know died you have to figure out something to ramble on about, which somewhat amounts to you saying "It's nice of you to be sad." Dave does a pretty cool-guy job of that here. He also starts talking about the sword lodged deep in his chest and firmly stuck into the stone floor of the ruins. I think I've given you a lot of tools to parse any symbolic data when it comes to the Strider brothers, swords, their broken status, and them being stuck in things. It's another Sword in the Stone situation, with a few provisos: 1) It's a sword in a bro, not just a stone. 2) We know Dave doesn't solve that classic mythical problem in the conventional way, so pulling the sword out is going to be a problem. Not because it's impossible, but because it involves gore, and messing with an abusive guy's corpse, which suffice to say, is triggering. 3) We know Dave is meant to solve challenges of this format by breaking the sword. However... 4) Bro's katana is literally unbreakable (until proven breakable much later, under very specific conditions). So what does this all add up to, when you factor in the established language of these symbols? Maybe you can try sorting that out. I think a decent summary is this entire configuration—a dead Bro + an unbreakable sword lodged in his bloody corpse and stone edifice—is something Dave is in no way equipped to engage with. Which maybe is an obvious point? Anyway, a deep dive on this is jumping the gun, since we literally see him trying to deal with this dead Bro/sword issue later. But then he mentions the suicide plan, which suggests this triggering event is already tilting him in the direction of some depressive trains of thought. His conversations with Rose about certain things probably haven't helped much either. (You know, considering she's the one plotting the suicide mission.)

[theyscreamjade]

so i was listening to call out my name and I thought of an imagine for shinso or bakugo.

hope you can make it, remember to drink water and stay home.

-🌸

Call Out My Name

How did you know that I tend to write my imagines with music? My dear flower anon, I hope one day I see you~ but I do drink the respect juice. Alright, When I listened to this song, I immediately thought of Bakugo instead of Shinso, but don’t worry. I’ve got something for him. This was originally an idea I had for my self-ships but I think this’ll be good! I’ll probably add it later! I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Abuse, Gore, Strong Language and Subject Matter.

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive. -Charlotte Brontë

_________________________

“Aye, Dumbass.” He said, making you look over at him. You placed your hand on your hip with a soft curious look on your face as he looked down at you.

“The next time you feel like you’re going to freeze like you did, just call my name..” he mumbled softly, a blush covering his cheeks. His randomness made you laugh a bit before you realized he was being serious.

You and Bakugo were in a secret relationship, which was mutually respected. You didn’t want to interfere with his ambitions and he didn’t want to have you in the spotlight though you are already. He’s seen the relationships within the hero’s world and they hardly ever work out. He doesn’t want to lose you...but he doesn’t want to make things worse for you.

A few things about you were being discovered with each step of the relationship, but..he was always curious about your original origins. You were adopted by a hero at a young age and raised under her wing though she would go on to say that there was a small period in your life you can’t talk about. It was a time where your father was freed from prison for good behavior and was able to take you away from her.

It was past you never spoke about..untold the doors were opened. Several things happened almost in an instant, your apartment was broken into, you were kidnapped and your whereabouts were still unknown. Well, they were.

The big secret was revealed from your father’s records for his seventeenth arrest which granted your guardian full custody of you. Child abuse was the final charge that was placed on him and which sent him onto his long jail sentence.

He could remember the bastard's face when Midoriya exposed an image of him during a group meeting to plan rescue even though he wanted to save you as soon as you disappeared. It had to take a talk from Kirishima, All Might, and Beat Jeanest to make him take his anger and place it in the back. For now.

His feet touched the sandy surface that surrounded the large warehouse. It was located right outside the cities limits, literally five hours away. A scream could be heard as light flittered on and off, just making his blood boil. It was yours.

“Bro...Don’t lose control.” Kirishima tried to reason as his hearing started to zone out. Rage, regret, anger at him but also as himself. He regretted not knowing a single thing about you, the issue of not knowing about your past, the reason why you became a hero in the first place was to obliterate the judgments and proclamations people made about you because of your villainous parents.

You hid your feelings through a smile. Those times he could’ve been there, he could’ve held you when you’d feel helpless, broken, abused. Those times you often sat alone, those times you’d lock yourself in your apartment to seclude yourself. He’d hear the hiccups when you’d cry, the soft sobs.

His hands began to pop a bit, the soft sounds of explosions on his hands. Before anyone could react, he caught a glimpse of you. Your shadow was being reflected from the dim light inside the room, your hands were bounded, chained as you tried to fight against the attacker.

His eyes stared quietly at you, trying to fight. For a mere second, your eyes looked towards the hidden group of hero’s, blended well into the darkness. Your heart pounded in your chest as you shoved your pride aside. The spiky hair was the first thing you spotted before you screamed as loud as you could.

“BAKUGO!!” You shrieked as loud as you could as everyone reacted at your sudden cry for help. The sudden boom was the last thing you could remember while your body crashed backward. The chains that bounded you left your arms scraped.

“YOU STUPID BITCH! WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Your father screamed towards you, the vision of seeing him when you were younger was flashing in your head, tears streaming down your cheeks. You scoot backward as quickly as you could, begging profusely.

“Please! I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’ll do better! I promise!” You cried, closing your eyes as your body shook in fear. Your father’s quirk took control of your body, his advanced telekinesis gave him the ability to kill anyone by stopping their blood flowing towards the heart.

“You were a fucking mistake from the beginning..” Your father spoke towards you, not a single shred of love in his words. The large metal doors were obliterated as shreds of metals slammed right into your father.

His power was disconnected from your body before you felt a sudden hug, a warm body pulled you into his chest. When you opened your eyes, the small sighting of black and you gripped Bakugo’s as tightly as you could. Your emotions soon lost control, those tears you were told to never stream flowed like a river.

“K-K-Katsuki..” you sobbed, your nails digging into his costume. Your hands were no longer restrained but the simple thought of that wasn’t on your mind. Those feelings rushed through your body, years, and years of denying the obvious impact that bastard left on you since you were five. A hand touched the back of your head, his gauntlet no longer on his arms. His hand touched your scalp while you sobbed your heart out.

The overwhelming feelings were finally being displayed. Bakugo simply kissed your head and whispered the words you’ve wished to hear for the longest. The feeling you wish you had so long ago, instead of lying and saying you were fine. For once in your life, his words made you finally feel protected.

“It’s okay...I’ve got you now.”

[revchainsaw]

The Lost Boys (1987)

The City of Santa Carla, CA has a vampire problem and that's just the sort of thing i've been looking for. We are amping up to Summerween my flock. What better way to get in the spirit of the season than with this 80s Vampire flick set in a balmy california beach town.

I can't lie, having just recently viewed the 1985 film Fright Night, it got me comparing the two so you may read some of my opinions comparing and contrasting The Lost Boys with it's predecessor. But where Fright Night is a classic vampire story brought into the then contemporary 1980s, the Lost Boys was the decades very own vampire film. Drawing from classic vampire films and the story of Peter Pan in equal parts the Lost Boys set the precedent that vampire films would draw from for years to come.

Sermon

The Emerson family falls on hard times financially and therefor moves to the town where Grandpa Emerson, the patriarch of the family grew up; Santa Carla, CA. The family has recently experienced a schism due to divorce, leaving the family unit as a grandfather, a mother and 2 sons, Michael and Sam.

Michael is quiet and masculine, his interests include fitness, motorcycles, and girls, while Sam is a bit more timid. Sam is into comic books and still can't sleep with his closet door open. The two begin to explore their surroundings, and while Sam meets the self-certain and precocious Frog brothers, self proclaimed Vampire hunters, Michael is lure by a young woman named Star into a group of predatory teenage vampire punks. Which let's face it, if they were to lean into the schlock, Teenage Vampire Punks would have been a great alternative title.

These Lost Boys as we'll call them seem to be led by David, played by Keifer Sutherland. David and his gang seek to initiate michael and through some manipulation trick him into drinking vampire blood disguised as wine. This turns Michael into a half vampire, who must fully give up his humanity to join the family.

Sam learns of his brothers transformation and after a little adjustment seeks the aid of the Frog brothers. They decide they must defeat the lead vampire to return Michael to normal, and astutely as we'll later find out (no spoiler warning, the movies almost 30 years old), pegs his mom's new boyfriend Max as the head Vamp. Max outwits the boys attempts to prove his vampirism, and thus they settle on the belief that David is the big bad.

The Frog brothers invade the Lost Boys hideout and kill Bill of Wyld Stallyns fame. They narrowly escape into the daylight before David can exact his revenge, but they know they have targets on their backs and they prepare themselves for a vampiric siege. The Lost Boys attack the Emersons and the Frog brothers and are defeated one by one. David is killed by Michael but no return to normalcy occurs. Max reveals himself to be the big bad, right before Grandpa Emerson returns and saves his family from this Peter Pan's Neverland. Grandpa hops out of his truck and delivers one of the greatest final zingers in film history.

The Benediction

Best Character: Did you know David means Beloved?

It's true look it up, it's Hebrew. David is the prototype for the young, rebellious, sexy vampire. It wasn't long after the lost boys that we got Spike in Buffy the vampire slayer, who is let's be honest just the 90's version of David. Spike my be a bit more of a lone wolf, but David is hands down the best character in this movie, and really what competition does he have other than the Frog brothers? Michael is kind of a lump, even if he's a lump who resembles Jim Morrison.

I am also going to include best actor into this category. All the charisma and charm falls on Kiefer Sutherland, as he acts circles around everyone else on screen. There's a reason the image of David is what you think of every time you think of this movie. He's not even the main antagonist of the movie. David is a great look, a scary vampire, a great actor in a great role.

Worst Character: Who's the Kid?

The first time I ever saw Lost Boys, i didn't understand how Michael and Star had a kid already. It was later that I realized he's just some kid. He doesn't really add anything but a cool looking image of a vampire faced little boy. Kind of a superfluous part. Not bad, just extra and unnecessary.

Best Kill: Death Breath (or Guard Dog on Duty)

The best kill of Lost Boys is when the Frog brothers defeat ... Paul? one of the other vampires besides David. Whoops did I say the Frog brothers defeated him? No, that was actually Nanook coming in for the kill. The Frog Bros fail to succesfully off this bloodsucker when Nanook barges into the bathroom and knocks this punk into a tub of Holy Water. The gore on the vamps face is excellent and probably some of the better practical effects work in the film.

Best Effect: Holy Water Works

While the Vampire melt itself is pretty darn good to look at, it's immediately followed by a volatile reaction that Sam Raimi would be proud of. The whole bathroom convulses and erupts with blood, it comes out of every pipe! the toilet explodes! It's awesome!

Best Aspect: Not your Big Brothers Vampire Movie

I had mentioned earlier that I had been comparing this movie to Fright Night, and as much as I love that older film, the Lost Boys beats it at almost every way. The effects in Fright Night are above bar constantly and hold nothing back, but the film for all of it's unrelenting visuals is actually quite slow. The Lost Boys and Fright Night definitely represent how much youth culture can change in just 2 years. You'd be forgiven for thinking these films take place in different decades. The Lost Boys is faster, has more attitude, and is much more adventurous in it's scope than Fright Night. If Fright Night was Judas Priest then the Lost boys is Iron Maiden. It's not as mature, but it's just that rebellious juvenility that gives it it's punch.

Worst Aspect: Mini Max

As far as big bads go. If I could make another comparison to Fright Night, it would be so much more intimidating the have a charming Jerry Dandridge playing his games with the Emersons, as his underlings The Lost Boys get the dirty work done and have fun doing it. However, we end up with this kind of dorky dude, who is even written off in the second act, only to return at the ass end of the movie just to be immediately slain and provide the but of the final quip. It was pretty weak sauce.

Best Dog: Nanook

Nanook is a good dog. He does all the protecting and is the best vampire hunter in the movie. Sorry Frog Bros.

Runner Up Dog: Thorn

Thorn is a good dog. But Thorn is also a bad dog. Thorn is a hellhound familiar to Max, but she is still good at doing dog stuff. So round of applause for this good girl.

Best make-up: Vampire Face

Fright Night stomps all over Lost Boys in the effects department, except for in the design of the horrific vampire face. The vampire face in Fright Night looks like a prosthetic sitting on an actors face. It doesn't feel like that mouth could be used for eating or biting but is just there to look creepy. In moving away from that the make up artists for the Lost boys focused more on the upper parts of the face, creating an almost cat like predatory look for when the vampires are at their most carnivorous. This style was absolutely borrowed by the team on Buffy the Vampire Slayer years later, and it's an aspect of Vampires in film that has sadly gone away. Sign the petition, let's bring back vampire face.

Best Feature: The Soundtrack

It would be impossible to talk about the Lost Boys without talking about the soundtrack. There's not one standout song in this movie, some may argue the Echo and the Bunnymen cover of People are Strange, but I think it's just one incredibly well utilized song of many for this film. Listen to the whole soundtrack, it's all good.

Summary

In the 80s there were several attempts to resurrect the monsters of old. Several directors who had grown up on the Universal monsters were now in the position to make films themselves. The resistance to rely on vampires and werewolves was fading and these sorts of monster movies were finally being green lit. Arguably, An American Werewolf in London is the best of these films, but the Lost Boys is definitely the most representative of the movement. It's not a satire, its funny but not a comedy, it's not parody or a subversion. The Lost Boys is 100% the definitive 80s Vampire Movie.

Grade: A

[squidprinceofwinterfell]

Stick of Truth Commentary

Intro

Intro cut scene is a nice touch! The animation is nice, and it adds story and stakes to the game the boys are playing. Reminds me of “Lord of the Rings.”

I like how the boys see the stick as a golden staff, but it’s literally just…a stick.

Create your character

Fighter, Mage, Thief, Jew – which is the best and why?

Intro to New Kid and family

Dialogue between parents creates an ominous backstory. Who is looking for New Kid and why?

New Kid is a mute weirdo and I love it.

The first quest (making friends) reminds me of “The Sandlot.”

The shitting feature is awesome.

New Kid meets Butters and is brought to KKK

What exactly is the power of diabetes?

Chekov’s Clyde!

It’s cute how cool everyone is with Princess Kenny.

I like that every player is called Douchebag, but I wish every player didn’t have to play as a boy.

Elves attack

Funny how Cartman’s alarm is just Butters yelling “Alarm!”

Cartman has pretty good commentary when New Kid is fighting. I actually miss that later on.

How did the elves snag the stick? Either Clyde is a bad watchdog or Kyle is super strategic. I choose both.

New Kid must find Token, Tweek, and Craig

Token

I never knew Token was so rich that he had security! It’s probably to keep Cartman out.

I love that Token’s property is calling Dark Meadows.

Token: “The elves took the stick again?” Haha!

Tweek

Tweek is the only employee at Tweek Bros.? That’s called child labor!

I love that Mrs. McCormick thinks the meth heads in her garage are just nice renters. Is she being paid in meth?

Why would a 10-year-old boy be an undercover cop? Only in South Park.

Tweek was totally named after the word “tweeker.”

Craig

Craig is in detention for (of course) flipping off the principal. Is Principal Victoria still principal at this point?

Craig’s alias is Feldspar the Thief? I refuse to believe this isn’t a reference to Malcolm in the Middle.

On the “thief” option at the beginning, Cartman says he’s never seen a white thief before, yet Craig is a thief. Hmm…

“Heeeere they come…I’ll be outta here in ten minutes.” Smug, snarky Craig is the best Craig.

I like that Mackey seems to know he’s in a video game (by referencing the boss fight). It’s very Deadpool.

The Bard

The Inn of the Giggling Donkey is just Jimmy’s house. His living room is convincing as a bar/lounge/hangout.

Twitter = carrier raven

“There once was a maiden from Stonebury Hollow / She didn’t talk much, but boy did she swallow / I had a nice lance that she sat upon / The maiden from Stonebury who was also your mom.” I love Jimmy’s songs!

Butters: “No hurry, Douchebag. The princess is just being raped.” OMG

An elf was jumping on the bed to simulate raping Princess Kenny? The boys are really committed to this game.

Cartman: “Good job, Princess Gone Wild. Double D buddy powers.” Kenny flashing his man boobs is the best distraction tactic.

The Brown Note is Jimmy’s best attack.

“Welcome to the KKK!”

Alien abduction

Cartman’s fart lessons finally come in handy! New Kid’s ass is too strong to be probed.

I love that alien abduction is viewed as just another annoying part of living in South Park.

The guy from the recordings is the hobo hidden onboard, right?

The Nazi zombie hobo is the game’s first instance of the Nazi zombie plot. It tells us that the aliens are responsible for this when the ship crash lands to Earth and green goo gets in the sewer.

New Kid crashed an entire spaceship. He’s kind of a badass. And he gets to keep the alien probe!

The big bad government is involved now to deal with “another UFO crash.” How often does this happen??

Only South Park would try to pass off a UFO as construction of a Taco Bell. And only South Park citizens would believe it.

Recruitment (pt. 1)

All New Kid has to do to get the goth kids to join is put on black clothes. I’m glad to see they still have low standards.

New Kid finally meets Stan and Kyle! I’ve been waiting for this.

According to Kyle, Cartman lied about the stick being stolen and is hiding it. According to Cartman, Kyle is lying because New Kid can’t retrieve the stick if Kyle claims he doesn’t have it. It’s a game of “he said, she said” but I’m inclined to believe Kyle. This is Cartman we’re talking about…

PTA meeting

I’m disappointed no one yelled “Rabble, rabble!” at the PTA meeting.

Is no one else alarmed that Randy lured a young boy into the bathroom alone?

“That’s all you’ve got is a sign? At least crap on a desk or something!” Mr. Garrison is speaking highly of Cartman, I see.

She-Ogre

“Give me back my iPhone, DEMON!” This is an accurate depiction of a brother-sister relationship.

It’s adorable that Stan uses Sparky in battle.

Taco Bell

I love that the big bad government agents are such bad liars that they killed a guy asking about encharidos.

“Goddamn it! I’m so tired of Nazi zombies. It’s so…overused!” Haha!

I’m surprised the adults actually took the bombing threat seriously and weren’t bummed about no Taco Bell.

Recruitment (pt. 2)

The final goth test is DDR?? That’s so conformist.

Once you win the goth kids over, you can recruit them to either Cartman’s side or Kyle’s. I always pick Kyle’s side when I play this. I’ve been itching to betray Cartman since this game started!

South Park Elementary

The huge battle scene takes place at the school because it’s where Cartman supposedly hid the stick. South Park Elementary is busted and makes a great setting for a battle scene. More “Lord of the Rings” vibes!

New Kid’s farts help Kyle’s side get the upper hand. Take that, Cartman!

Another reason choosing Kyle’s side is better: New Kid’s battle against Butters is more impactful because he was New Kid’s first friend. If it was a face off against Stan, it wouldn’t be as emotional.

The final battle gives New Kid one last chance to pick a side. Like Stan says, “I can’t believe this is even a choice.” Kyle vs Cartman is like Chanel vs Walmart.

Yet another reason choosing Kyle’s side is better: Cartman’s farting fire at the end of this fight is one of the best scenes of the whole game.

Clyde

I love the twist where neither Kyle nor Cartman was lying. Clyde really punked the fuck out of everyone.

Kyle is the only one to acknowledge he’s aware of the green goo and how dangerous it is.

Stan: “Clyde, but why?” Cartman: “I banished him to be lost in space and time and now he’s all pissed off.” Haha!

Clyde’s fortress is so badass. I can see the appeal of the dark side.

How the hell does Clyde have control over the Nazi zombies??

I love that Clyde’s power move is keeping his friends out past their bedtimes. The stakes are higher now, but this reminds us this is still a kid’s game…or it started as one.

Underpants gnomes

Gnomes: “The kid is awake! What do we do?” “Oh, fuck, I guess we gotta kill him!” Me problem solving.

Since when do underpants gnomes have warlocks?? I thought they were all failed businessmen.

For some reason, high pitched gnome voices yelling “Oh, fuck!” is really funny to me.

New Kid fighting underneath his giant parents mid-coitus is another iconic fight scene. How many times must New Kid dodge his dad’s ballsack?? The kid is hardcore.

The girls

Kyle convinces everyone to team up against Clyde. I’m continually impressed by Kyle because of his leadership, intellect (he spent all night researching), and open mind (he doesn’t balk at teaming up with the humans or inviting girls to play). I’m totally Team Kyle, if you haven’t noticed.

I love that the girls blindfold New Kid when they bring him to their lair. That’s some Mafia shit.

Annie: “He…doesn’t really talk.” Bebe: “That’s hot!” ME

Sunshine, sparkle, glitter…I wanna talk like this all the time.

Heidi Turner was the two-faced bitch! That’s very Mrs. Cartman of her.

Abortion clinic

New Kid’s abortion doctor is named Dr. Poonlover because of course he is

The big bad government is doing Plan B at the abortion clinic. Clever joke!

Where did Randy get that blonde wig from?? The men in South Park cross-dress so much.

Khloe Kardashian’s aborted fetus as a Nazi zombie is also a legendary fight.

Canada

New Kid didn’t get that his photographer was a pedophile even when he was almost butt naked?? Also, who was that guy who jumps out from behind the boxes?

The layout of Canada is clearly a parody of Pokemon games, right? Either way, I love it. The shitty jpeg videogame look is very Canada.

“They’re like wolves, but they’re dire.”

Getting trained by Terrance and Phillip makes all this back and forth bullshit worth it.

Clyde’s fortress

Of course Cartman butts in when Kyle’s trying to give an inspirational speech. What an attention hog!

It’s funny to me how easily Craig switched to Clyde’s side. Loyalty much??

“I really found myself relating to Clyde’s views about darkness and enslaving the world.” Jesus, Craig!

Cartman’s negative reaction to electricity is a callback to the chip put in his head in Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

“It’s my favorite kid!” WOW, RANDY

“Who could it be?” I love how long New Kid lets them all wonder before he steps up.

Stan: “Dude, that’s not Taco Bell sauce.” Clyde: “Then why’d I find it at the Taco Bell?” A+ logic

How dare you, Clyde! Let Chef rest in peace!

Government interruption

“Whenever aliens are spotted, vampires run amok…” Vampires exist in this universe??

I love that the boys don’t care about the big bad government’s scheme.

So New Kid’s special power is making friends on social media! I should’ve known.

Princess Kenny’s betrayal

Princess Kenny planned to steal the stick all along! This game is full of betrayals.

Kenny makes a pretty cute anime princess. Nazi zombie? Not so much.

Princess Kenny is a badass final boss. And I never saw it coming!

I’m glad the “never fart on someone’s balls” joke meant something in the end. I can see why it was banned – it’s super deadly!

End

The boys unite to save friendship and love…by chucking a stick into a lake.

New Kid stole Cartman’s catchphrase!

Why did Al Gore appear so ominously at the end?? What are you gonna do to the kids, Al Gore??

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 5)

TIER: Meanwhile, minutes in the future, a new character wanders about the desert wasteland. A PEREGRINE MENDICANT.

CHEL: This character resembles WV, except plain white in colour and noticeably taller, also wrapped in rags and pushing what appears to be a shopping trolley full of mailboxes.

WV heads for the passageway outside, the door to the bunker slamming shut behind him and glowing with a touchscreen; interacting with that causes the antechamber to spin around and a door to open into a new room, containing more computers. One of the two screens depicts Earth, while the other shows four spirographs orbiting around a fifth spirograph, with one set of two dots (one large, one small) next to the centre and another set of dots outside the orbit range. Looks familiar? A smaller screen below shows coordinates and times.

The room also contains a meter stick, which WV considers combining with his knife (really a strip of rusty metal) and a strip of rag to form a spear, but he hasn’t got his knife with him, and a bizarre contraption which looks like a ray gun pointing at a circular platform. When WV presses the big blue button on the console, the machine is proved to be an APPEARIFYER, which produces a pumpkin apparently out of thin air. Closer examination proves it to have taken the pumpkin from the coordinates entered on the console; there is a symbol carved on the pumpkin in the shape of what appears to be a pointy-eared animal’s face.

WV experiments a bit more with the machine, successfully summoning his knife back and using it to cut open the pumpkin (we are spared the apparently gruesome sight of him devouring the innards messily). The spirograph switch is immovable without a key. WV is also able to rescue the firefly from within the amber chunk, and this being a cartoon the firefly is miraculously alive and very happy about this! Awww.

TIER: The APPEARIFYER seems to be capable of grabbing thing from anywhere and anywhen, as long as doing so doesn't create a time paradox of all things. Attempting to do so causes the machine to activate a failsafe that turns whatever someone tried to get into a pile of paradox slime.

CHEL: With seconds to spare and dramatic music playing, WV appearifies the grate over the entrance to provide himself with an exit route, then scrambles around cramming all his cans and equipment into the hollow pumpkin, much to the consternation of the firefly, now named Serenity (of course). Frantically, he rushes up the ladder towards outside and safety… only to slip and fall back down at the last second, cans landing all over him, cutting to a scene reading “PSYCHE?” The next page states simply “UNPSYCHE”, the text beneath declaring a failure of the rare and highly dangerous 5X CLIFFHANGER COMBO, and we lead into another animation.

WV makes it to the top of the ladder just as the countdown finishes. Fortunately, the explosion doesn’t kill him; instead, it turns out to be the starting of rocket engines which propel the entire bunker into the air, setting it flying westward. Cut to John’s suburb, noted to be A CONTINENT WESTWARD AND YEARS IN THE PAST (BUT NOT MANY), where a meteor plummets to Earth, destroying all life and construction around it. Wind fills up the crater with soil again and a large white tree sprouts in its centre over a time period then revealed to be the years between its destruction and WV’s arrival.

Meanwhile, Peregrine Mendicant pushes their cart full of mailboxes along in the desert, oblivious to the bunker which is heading right overhead. WV observes, and the camera pans out to show PM’s outside another bunker with the same green house symbol on it. AN OCEAN WESTWARD AND YEARS IN THE PAST, but not “not many” this time, a spirograph opens up in space, shooting out a meteor, which crashes beside an active volcano. Millennia pass; the volcano dies, the crater fills up with greenery, and a tall building of green stone with a frog statue on the top is erected by unseen beings. As water levels rise, the building is covered almost completely and the volcano becomes an ocean island. Pterosaurs fly past, so we can presume the building was not made by humans.

Cut to Rose, cornered by the fire, frantically hitting and screaming at the generator until a flaming tree falls, shattering the generator and forcing Rose to leap to safety - or not safety, as the fire is still surrounding her. Mom Lalonde observes from the window of the house and presses a button on a keypad, opening up a secret passage in the mausoleum, leading downwards.

In a mysterious purple tower, Dad Egbert is handcuffed and hurried along by two imps, until he breaks free of the cuffs and attacks with cake and shaving cream. (If you pay close attention, you'll discover the cuffs were the trick ones from John's chest, according to another reader - I never did notice.) Atop another tower, this one Dave’s apartment building, Dave faces down Bro and Cal under a bright orange sky, and we finally see Bro Strider in non-silhouette. He bears a striking resemblance to the photo of the GameBro writer, right down to the popped collar. I don’t know if he’s actually supposed to be said writer, though.

Finally, WV’s flying bunker comes to a gentle stop in the middle of another desert, and he finds himself at the foot of a third tower, this one the remains of the frog-topped building, the ocean now long dry. The animation ends, and the curtains close on Act 2.

Now this is how to get across a lot of information fast! Much better. Very little text needed (in fact, what is there might not be strictly necessary, though it’s useful for immediately parsing what’s shown), no messing about. It’s a sharp improvement over sylladex shenanigans.

Okay, what do you guys think of Act 2? What does it do better than Act 1, or worse? Do you think it’s doing a good job of storytelling?

TIER: The pacing has improved.

CHEL: Technically speaking there are more instances of GET ON WITH IT (five to Act 1’s three), but this act is also longer and some of those instances were unnecessary single pages and not endless faffing about like in Act 1, so yes, that’s getting better. I think Hussie now knows better where his plot is going, and I don’t know if he originally did in the early stages of Act 1, so he’s better able to stick to a route to the goal.

FAILURE ARTIST: It is interesting seeing Rose’s and Dave’s home situation in light of later developments. I don’t think Hussie intended any deep commentary on child abuse when he wrote those scenes. I think it was edgy humor.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Rose’s FAQ or Sassacre’s book and I am disappointed by the racism in the excerpts. Worse, I know Hussie reuses the ethnic wedding metaphor later.

But on a positive note, the walkabout game is a cool new use of the medium.

BRIGHT: There’s a lot more meat to this act. More things happen, we get introduced to some of the background characters and find out more about how the game is set up. We also have more characterisation, which is a definite plus.

CHEL: So, for our hypothetical rewrite, removing the racism is obvious. “Edgy” humour was in at the time of writing, but even with that excuse, this is icky. It doesn’t really have the self-awareness of the awfulness of, say, Something Positive, it’s just a guy saying offensive things and it’s not quite clear how aware he is that they’re offensive.

Also obvious is removing the redundancy. I’d also add in a better reaction for John learning that Earth is doomed. I considered possibly moving that part of the reveal to a later point when it could be explored a bit more, but it does work nicely as a wham line with little info given yet. Also, figure out what the fuck we should be going for with Rose’s and Dave’s parental figures and stick to it. I could certainly see it being possible to lull the reader into falsely thinking of awful situations as funny in context and slowly revealing ways it fucked the kids up as we go, but in HS it’s handled clumsily, and there’s far too much going on already for an idea like that to have space to do it justice, I think. Oh, also, if John’s dream sequence was necessary, I’d have had it with him being knocked out, not just randomly deciding to nap while still surrounded by monsters. That was just kind of weird, especially since his friend is still in danger at that point.

Anything else you all can think of, readers? I don’t think we have any huge holes in the plot yet or anything. It’s certainly still much better than most of the works sporked here, but we'd appreciate it if you point out anything we missed.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 CALL CPA PLEASE: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 6 GET ON WITH IT!: 8 GORE GALORE: 0 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 3 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 0 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 0 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 1 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6 TOTAL: 45

[munchflix]

WATCHMEN - THE SUPER EXTENDED CUT

IMDB BLURB: In 1985 where former superheroes exist, the murder of a colleague sends active vigilante Rorschach into his own sprawling investigation, uncovering something that could completely change the course of history as we know it.

WARNINGS: Giant blue peen, large bepis. It's blue. Malin Ackerman can't act for shit. Attempted rape. Lots of murder. Some gore. Adult themes? Zack Snyder. Repulsive sex scene. It's not gross, it's just weird and uncomfortable. And unnecessarily long.

RATING: Who watches the Watchmen? Us...unfortunately.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: All reviews are done solely for humor and should not be taken seriously ever. If you cannot handle cursing, crude humor and probably some offensive things, pls do not read this. And please please don’t watch this fucking movie.

MUNCH: I want you to know, first thing, that I will never forgive you for making me watch this for a THIRD TIME. I first saw this in the theatre on my birthday and it was awful then. I spent three hours waiting for it to get better and it didn't and now you're making us watch the super extended version with 30 more minutes of shit I DON'T WANT TO SEE. I am old and I was a fan of the comic long before this detritus was filmed. I was actually excited for this shit. This movie, like a lot of the movies we review once a year, is bad. It's pretty, it's well filmed, it has a brilliant cast, and it sucks like a Dyson trying to fellate a rubber chicken.

BISCUITS: Okay...I'm gonna be upfront about this. We're gonna have to be here for each other during this review. We need to BELIEVE in ourselves, and to share our mental fortitude. That might be the only way we'll be strong enough to make it through. Even then, there's no guarantee we'll make it...but if we do, we'll emerge from the other side as changed women, now knowing the true power that the bond of friendship can hold. Or not. Actually, we'll probably just end up sad. But the point is, we need to be here for each other.

M: The Nixon makeup is so bad. All this budget and he looks like a half melted wax statue.

These are the Nixons, folks.

B: Jeffrey Dean Morgan in old age makeup? I'd still smash that. The DOOMSDAY CLOCK! That's a reference to the comic! Get it?! We're JUST like the comic!

M: That's part of what bugs me, there's so many moments just taken straight out of the comic and then the rest of it is just Zack Snyder mentally masturbating about how cool he is.

B: Let me tell you younguns - long before the days of Suicide Squad and Batman V. Superman, Zack Snyder created the first of many tragic mistakes in the saga of "DC and Warner Bros. Attempt to Movie". It was dark, overdramatic, and had little substance behind its superficially good visuals. But Warner Bros. were all like "OMG Zach, look at all this money. Can you fuck ALL our beloved properties like this???"

M: Nostaaaaaalgia.

B: Okay, Unforgettable - this song was in the comic, it was in the book. It was playing in a scene in the comic but it was when Dan and Laurie tried to have sex for the first time. I don't understand the rationale behind using a song from the comic but putting it in a completely different scene. Why did you make that change? I don't understand why you would do that.

M: Watchmen in a nutshell. JESUS CHRIST I forgot that the explosions come in about 30 times louder than everything else.

B: Why is the Comedian wearing a smiley face pin on his bathrobe? Because of the symbolism??? Nostalgia. This is from the coooooooooomic. This is the first instance of inappropriate soundtracking, which is alright the first time but gets annoying when you do it over and over.

M: I have no idea. Oh yeah..the movie. The Comedian is fighting a mysterious figure that we'll figure out who it is later. Unless you've read the comic. It's Veidt. Slow zoom on the pin with the blood spatter because it's SYMBOLISM. Also the Comedian got thrown out a window. There's also been half an hour of slow mo and we're only 5 minutes into the movie.

B: *burps loudly* Bob Dylan, because there was a reference to a Bob Dylan song in the comic. Slow shots of our great heroes, The Minutemen. Zacc Snyder, fuck you. These were the original super hero dudes who spawned the existence of all the other masked vigilantes in this universe.

M: Gerard Butler??? Who the fuck is Gerard Butler?? Hang on, I have to look this up. Oh...he's in the Tales of the Black Freighter, which is only in this super-long ultra-extended edition.

This gif makes it look like Gerard Butler is playing Sally Jupiter. This is not the case (unfortunately?).

B: Which we're watching because we hate ourselves. Historical landmarks to set up the time period. Also Silhouette was a lesbian. Dollar Bill got killed when his cape got stuck in a revolving door. NO CAPES! Mothman went nuts and got put in an asylum. The minutemen turned out fine. Also Silhouette is dead. And Gay.

M: Bury your gays. She was only alive for two minutes of credits.

B: To be fair, she didn’t really have a role in the book either. Also, Kennedy is killed. By the Comedian. Which I suppose was implied in the comic...very vaguely. This is way too much exposition. We can read about history, we don't need a recap of every single event since 1940. We aren't that dumb, Zakk. There's more politics in this intro than exposition but Watchmen was supposed to be political. I have big problems with Matthew Goode....goode? How is that pronounced? Look at all that BEEF tho. Arby’s, I got ya new commercial right here.

I’ll take the one on the far left with cheese, please.

M: Slow the fuck down, jesus. I can't type as fast as you thirst. I'm gonna make you type this if you don't slow down.

B: Glad I'm not wearing a retainer. You think Jeffrey Dean Morgan would pay for it? Also Night Owl's costume looks so shitty.

M: Seriously, slow down. I have issues with how contoured Manhattan is.

B: And then everything went bad for the vigilantes and they got banned. This is SO LOUD. Tell Zaque Snyder I get spooked easily. I don’t like loud noises, I’m like a wild animal.

M: Oh yeah so the Comedian is dead. Two detectives wonder how he died. So mysterious. It was Veidt. Don't blame me if you didn't read the comic, it's been out for 30 fucking years.

B: My other issue with this movie, it doesn't ADD anything to it's source material. If I wanted just Watchmen I'd just read the comic. I could read most or all of it in the time it takes to watch this movie. So...Rorschach is ranting.

M: That's all he really does in this movie tho is rant.

B: All the towns in the world and I had to end up in this one. The ballsack town. Comedian kept a picture of Sally by his bed but that's backwards...she kept a picture of HIM on her bedside.

M: Rorschach found Comedian's secret closet where he went to be gay. Or a superhero. Or both. So he knows he's the Comedian.

B: Well, one or two of them were gay...a bunch of guys who wear their underwear outside their pants and this is somehow surprising? More slow mo.

M: This movie could be an hour and half shorter without all the pointless slo mo. Hollis is being played by Stephen McHattie and I love him so much.

B: Patrick Wilson (you can tell it’s Patrick Wilson because he looks exactly like Patrick Wilson) is playing Night Owl and he is a very good boy. The best boy. Although he doesn't have much competition for goodest boy, most of the boys are pretty bad. Hollis Mason is played up to be more Drunk Grandpa than caring mentor figure. Raw footage of Rorschach looking like FUCKING BIGFOOT. Your local cryptid.

*X-Files theme plays*

M: That was 20 seconds of super important extra footage that we missed from the original 3 hour long movie. Okay so movie, right. Drieberg goes home to find his home has been broken into. It's Rorschach. Eating beans. HUMAN BEANS. With HUMAN BEAN JUICE. We saw you lumbering around like Bigfoot on the news. Rorschach's mask is cool tho. One point for you, Zackk Snyder.

B: Rorschach, because he's a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist is like " I think someone's killing masks" even tho only one mask person has died so far. Patrick Wilson is a good actor but his performance in this movie is so blech. I dunno if that was the direction he was given or...

M: Part two of things wrong with Watchmen. Lots of good actors giving boring performances. I love many of these actors but they're so dull.

B: Except Malin Ackerman. It was an experimental time, Chad! All of our Bro Moments. Our BROMENTS.

M: WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU, CHAD?!

B: Maybe Drieberg quit on account of the Keene act because it started being illegal to do the thing, but Rorschach didn't because he’s crazy. And he's doing more edgelord monologuing.

M: Holy crap the animation.

B: And now with NO CONTEXT we get launched into the Tales of the Black Freighter. It's an anime, apparently. (makes angry angry noises ) this makes me SO mad because the Black Freighter, though a story within a story, had an explanation for its presence. It's being read by someone within the bigger story. In the movie it almost looks like it was animated by Ralph Bakshi. Like the people who did Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Ralph Bakshi had a bad trip together.

This is what I see, every night in my dreams.

M:  I guess this is being narrated by Gerard Butler?? This is so out of place. It takes you completely out of the immersion of the movie to show you this movie. That was super jarring though.

B: The comic had a lot more leeway when it came to blending the stories together. Oh and now we get a shot of someone reading the comic to bring us back. Rorschach in the comic was described as being fascinatingly ugly. I think Jackie Earl Haley is too good looking.

M: And Veidt. I hate everything they did with this entire fucking character. I hate the way he looks, the way he talks, the way he acts, the way he Veidts. I fucking hate him so much. I hate what they did with his story and the whole Manhattan cancer thing. It's DUMB.

B: Why is Dan here? It was Rorschach who warned Adrian. And they're talking about nuclear war, very important to the crux of everything. This lighting is ugly. It makes Veidt look like a greasy boy.

M: He IS a greasy boy.

B: Meeting with Dreiberg left bad taste in mouth. Like cold beans.

M: Rorschach is expositioning everything we've already seen, dialogue straight out of the comic.

B: Rorschach breaks in to see Manhattan. Rorschach asks the real questions: Does Adrian Veidt is gay??

M: That is a HUGE ASS. Btw Manhattan is naked. He is super naked. You will never be allowed to forget that he is naked.

B: Malin Ackerman shows up...to “act”.... The mention temporal interference already, so you won't be surprised at the end of the movie. They really overemphasize Manhattan's eye things. He looks like a sad panda. I have issues with his CGI, he is really over contoured and he looks really...weird....Laurie...stop talking. PLease. Don't act, don't try to act.

Pictured: Sad Panda

M: Now he's taking Laurie on some fucking weird time trip that was supposed to happen three hours from now in the story. Manhattan is just sad in this movie. All his rage and his indifference are gone. He's just sad. He tells her the future and he's sad about it. And now, 99 Luftballoons so we don't forget it's the 80's.

B: This wasn't how this happened in the comic EITHER. Zacque Snyder and his love of throwing random songs into movies with no regard for how they might impact the mood.

M: So Lori is having dinner with Dreiberg just like Jon told her too. I'm giving up on spelling any names right as of right now.

B: They reminisce about their young days when they fought crime and dressed up like lunatics and all that stuff. Ah those days are behind us. We're in our 40's but in the movie we're like 25. Jon thinks there's gonna be nuclear war and also he can't fix my bad acting. They turned Laurie into such a sexy lamp in this movie. They strip everything away from her that made her interesting. I am laurie, I am GIRL. Who needs oxygen when you have another man's money.

You so. Fuckin. Precious. When you. Smile.

M: The Sound of Silence begins playing. We both laugh and denounce Zaeck Snyder and the horse he rode in on.

B: Should have been Take me to Church. I didn't realize how awful the soundtracking was in this movie the first time. They just throw in recognizable songs.

M: Comedian is getting buried. Rorschach is here and Manhattan and Dreiberg. And Simon and Garfunkle. It's not making this scene better. It's making it so much worse. Lori has been randomly teleported to her mothers with zero context. Her mother is Carla Gugino who deserves better than being in this fucking movie. They quote dialogue right from the comic. Did Zaquery Snyder write ANY dialogue for this movie? Her old age makeup is fucking awful and she is overacting this so hard.

B: And then we have the flashback to old days where the Comedian tries to rape her. The entire purpose of this flashback in one sentence. That's the plot point. From the comic. That we need to get into the movie somehow. I suppose they're going for show don't tell. At the moment i'm just focused on how it extends this torturous experience.

M: I have a lot of issues with this part. He beats her far more severely in the movie. They start the scene almost making it look like she did ask for it with all the slow undressing. It's so fucking unnecessary.

B: And then Hooded Justice comes in and this doesn't make sense in the movie when Comedian asks him if he gets off on this. But since they don't get into this in the movie...I think they're just trying to get us to go OH THE COMEDIAN IS A BAD GUY, HE'S SUCH A BAD GUY. We can get that. Why does everything in this movie take so long?

M: Everyone is having flashbacks to their time with Eddie. Manhattan is blowing up the entirety of the viet cong while the Comedian shoots people and Ride of the Valkyries is playing for no reason.

In awe at the size of this lad.

B: NEXT TIME YOU INVITE JON.

M: And then we get the Comedian is a horrible person but AGAIN because he's gonna shoot this woman he knocked up and Jon doesn't stop him. Jon is so fucking ripped that even fuzzed out in the background you can see every muscle.

B: They tell the story of how Eddie got his scar even though he doesn't...have it in the movie? Yeah I killed that woman I knocked up but you didn't stop me because you don't care and well...you're not wrong.

M: And now Veidt gets to have HIS flashback so we can be sure that the Comedian really was an asshole. The Comedian informs everyone that their plan is garb while Jon and Laurel Ann make goo goo eyes at each other which will become relevant an hour ago because they're obviously a couple NOW. He sets Ozymandias’ (Veidt's) map on fire to emphasize his point.

B: Ozymandias will remember that. Watchmen would make a great Telltale game. And Dan has his American Dream flashback where the Comedian is helping with crowd control and we don't care what's going on because the Comedian looks DAMN HOT. In slow mo.

M: Biscuit's thirst meter has increased tenfold.

B: What happened to the American Dream? You're looking at it. Just as beefy and greasy as I imagined it. He had a really nice arm vein going on in that scene. I have a gif of that for uh...research purposes. Very swole.

Pictured: The American Dream

M: I just realized that I don't really thirst after anyone in this movie. The comedian is hot because Jeffrey Dean Morgan but my thirst level is so low comparatively. The only main chick is Malin Ackerman and uh...no.

B: You're getting gayer the older you get.

M: I can't even deny that.

B: Moloch! He's a former supervillian of sorts and Rorschach is chasing him down because uh...I don't know. He just shows up and is like Hey fuck you buddy.

M: I still want an explanation for why Moloch alone has pointed ears. Nobody else in the entire movie has that kind of deformity.

B: And he's like The Comedian just showed up in my house! He was drunk and crying! We've all been there. We've all broken into our former nemesis's house drunk and crying. Maybe that's just me...

M: Except that's what really happened....

B: And the Comedian is like - I did some fucked up shit but this is worse! The shit this unnamed bad guy is doing worse! And he says that Moloch and Manhattan’s old girlfriend are on some mysterious list!

M: It's Veidt. Rorschach tries to nail Moloch for taking a medication made from apricot pits. Which are POISONOUS BTW, DO NOT EAT THEM. Rorschach spends fucking ten more minutes slow mo fucking monologuing about shit we already know and JUST SAW. There's so much extra shit in this movie that does not need to be here. He sounds like fucking Wolverine. Is that Hollis?

B: I can't even tell because this movie is SO DARK. We get a feeble attempt to connect newspaper man and the animated comic.

M: At least it's less jarring. Comic man drools excessively for no reason. They're even leaving bits of THIS story out and making it even weirder and more disparate than it needs to be. Fucking why.

The nightmares, they never stop.

M: Okay Jesus they went from that straight to Loorie and Jon trying to have sexxors and this is so wrong and out of place. And then Jon is six people.

B: god. jon. stop. what are u doing? I took a theatre class in high school and all those kids were better actors than Malin Ackerman. Which is bad because Laurie is an integral character in Watchmen. This happened way earlier and this is why she ran away to Dan in the comic, but it's fine. It's fine. Whatever. I don't care. She gets mad but not really because acting.

M: Jon underacts but that's his entire thing. This is so disjointed. Jon is teleporting reactors to Karnak while they argue. This will be relevant later.

B: Three bepis, no FOUR! Too much bepis for my needs. Or not enough...

M: Jesus Christ.

B: And NOW laurie shows up at dan's place. We needed to drag this out because we were REALLY stretching to get this movie to feature length, y’know?? We were really scraping at the bottom of the Watchmen barrel for content. There's just not enough material to get a good long juicy film out of it.

M: Can we just skip this whole part? I'll summarize. Laurie and Dan spend half an hour whining at each other because Laurie and Jon had a fight and they kinda wanna bang but that will take three hours to get to as well for no good goddamn reason. Meanwhile Jon is putting on a suit to do a tv interview.

B: There's a lot of scenes of Dan and Laurie but there's no chemistry at all between them and there's no buildup to their actual relationship. Even Dan is so nothing in this movie and I liked him. And there's an article from the comic because this is JUST LIKE THE COMIC.

M: Why are they...oh they're going to Hollis...but this isn't how it happened. They literally make this longer for no reason.

B: I know it would be really hard to cut anything from Watchmen, because pretty much everything is significant - there's no material that can really be removed that wouldn’t be missed in the final product. BUUUT they just added a whole ton of meaningless shit to this damn movie! At the expense of scenes we actually wanted! Dr Manhattan has his tv interview. This is not gonna go well. Everyone is like wtf are you talking about Jon. Dan and Lori beat up a bunch of thugs because uh...they're living for thrills?

M: Some reporter dude stands up and starts shit with Manhattan. He accuses him of giving everyone cancer. I'm sorry I caused all that cancer. You'd think Jon would KNOW whether or not he caused cancer...he was a fucking physicist.

B: Jon doesn't know whether or not he's radioactive. Spoiler alert: he ain't. He's just had his intrinsic fields removed - really simple procedure, like taking out the appendix.

M: *cronches pizza rolls*

B: A lot less screen time for Janey Slater in the movie, too. She's like "PRETTY PATTIES TURNED MY FACE PURPLE!!!" and then Doc Manhattan teleports everyone out of the studio because he's very emotional rn. That makes...one person in this movie with intense emotions.

M: You're right there...nobody in this movie really shows much in the way of emotion. Everyone's just sorta like "well, the world's going to shit - huh." I REALLY don't like the way they incorporated Tales of the Black Freighter into this movie.

B: Idec what's happening in this stupid anime. Man wants to get home before the freighter. Builds raft out of bloated corpses. Freaky eyes. It's supposed to parallel various elements of the 'real world' storylines but it's so jarring that drawing those connections becomes nigh on impossible. In the comic, panels from TotBF were often right alongside panels from the main story, but you couldn't really do something like that in a movie. They also still don't really do anything with the newspaper corner bits.

M: Did they actually show Dr. Manhattan leaving Earth?

B: No. Not yet.

M: So they just throw us into this scenario?

B: Yep. Dr. Manhattan got ANGERY and was like "y'know what? I'm going to Mars to deliver some exposition!! Way later than this happened in the comic, but who gives a flying fuck??" And we sorta get the explanation of the way Jon perceives time - but again, much less effective than it was in the comic. Everything in this movie is so DARK. 'Dark and gritty' doesn't usually refer to the visuals of a story.

M: Jon got stuck in an experimental machine where they were doing SCIENCE. He got disintegrated.

B: Just look at the SYMBOLISM...I mean, uh, the time. Jon's narration sounds like ASMR. He eventually manages to reassemble himself, but now he's blue....and nAkEd.

M: This giant naked blue dude shows up and Janey is just like "Jon?? Is that you??"

B: Jon is super-powerful, so the govt lords him as a weapon and uses him to help end the Vietnam war, and a lot of references to nuclear power.

M: I know his symbol is supposed to be a hydrogen atom, but it kinda looks like the power button on an Xbox.

Particle man, particle man...

B: This movie feels significantly gorier than the comic...which is not necessary. Janey is worried about how powerful Jon is - or she just wants him to put some fuckin' pants on.

M: Speaking of things that take you out of the movie - Jon's ENTIRE backstory in one flashback. Worked in the comic, not in the movie.

B: Jon macks on a 16 year old girl and is like - why is this a problem? My girlfriend is getting old, I gotta get a new one. Also I'm tired of earth. Going to mars.

M: We literally zoom out from Jon's ass crack.

B: There is no reason to put a physical or cgi camera that close to anyone's ass crack.

M: Jon has fucked off and now they're interrogating Laurie about where he went. She randomly assaults one of them because she can? Why are we having this slo mo smoking moment? And now another flashback to the Comedian... oh right, we have to have Laurie's version of why this guy was a douchebag.

B: Eddie's like, you think I'd fuck my daughter? And Sally is like - yah you might.

M: The gubmint is freaking out because their giant blue naked nuclear weapon has gone to Mars. I hate the Nixon makeup so much. He looks so fake. They wasted their budget on Manhattan's cock. I can't believe we still have 2 hours of this shit left.

B: (separate tangent about her cat) I'd rather focus on my cat than this movie. Why is this scene happening? Why is it significant? Is it supposed to increase the tension with the whole nuclear war thing??

M: I don't know. Why is it going on for so long? They figured out he's on mars because there's a blue spot? Uh...Laurie is beating up a guy and chaining him to a radiator? What....What did that have to do with ANYTHING? The gubmint is now attacking Veidt for trying to create free energy...?

B: This scene is just for Ozymandias to explain his backstory...I guess??

M: I honestly have no idea what's going on.

B: It's supposed to parallel the scene in the comic where he talks about Alexander the Great and stuff...

M: This happened at the END of the comic tho.

B: But here it's just...confusing. The choices they made just generally leave you feeling confused. Not like the comic did. It's ‘Vight’. I'm right.

Adrian Veidt is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago.

M: Oh and now the scene where a hitman shows up disguised as a pizza guy so we can slow mo more totally excessive gore.

B: There was plenty of violence in the comic but...you can be dark and edgy without being this damn gory. Dan and Laurie have yet another meaningless conversation at a table and now Dan is suddenly on board with Rorshach's paranoia??

M: And Dan invites her to come over but in the comic she literally ran to him immediately after Jon left. Jesus now Rorshach is fucking monologuing again. They're fucking with the order of events again and it's pissing me off.

B: They don't seem to do it with any rhyme or reason. You have to make changes to adapt to a medium but there's zero apparent reason for the changes in chronology...

M: Rorschach breaks into Moloch's house so he can get caught again. Why the fuck would Moloch know about any of this??

B: But Moloch is dead. It was a SET UP.

M: I'm losing all plot cohesiveness because of all this nonsense. I can't remember what actually happened. Ten minutes of Rorshach slow mo fighting his way out but he's gonna get caught because Veidt organized all this but they don't tell you that in the movie because of reasons.

B: We're not explaining a lot of the plot because it's happening so slowly. They caught Rorschach. They takin' im to prison.

M: Rorschach don't care. He got shit to do. And now maybe back to the animation...? Yes.

B: They do like 1/16th of this shit with the newstand corner. They should have just not at all done it. They just seem like framing to put the Black Freighter in there.

M: Except they don't do it every time, and that makes it worse. And they made weird ass changes to this story too. It's supposed to parallel what's happening in the main story but it's making NO SENSE.

B: This also adds nothing to the story and it breaks the immersion.

M: It mostly seems like an excuse to be gross. And now for Rorschach's mental health evaluation.

B: He's psycho bonkers crazy. Part of the concept of Watchmen is that everyone has issues. The complex psychology.

Look inside your local garbage and you may find a friend and boy.

M: Aw who cares about that. Let's shoot off some more fingers! We get his entire backstory in very very short flashbacks. He's still nuts.

B: This was over the course of quite a while in the comic.

M: Yeah but suddenly we're pressed for time in the seven hour long movie so we gotta condense his entire story into a ten minute scene. Which makes this feel rushed, which is fucking weird considering how drawn out every fucking thing in this movie is.

B: The comic felt like a bunch of stories being told at once but all tying in together at a certain point. Convergent stories The movie feels like a bunch of different stories that happen and then they're over. They're not tying anything together. (Biscuits starts singing Linkin Park because this part is so fucking dark)

M: So he's telling this story about how he killed a guy for kidnapping a girl and Biscuits is looking up the name of that song because she can't remember what it's called and still singing.

B: It's called Shadow of the Day...it’s like the one Linkin Park song I know

M: Okay. And Rorschach is gonna....kill this guy with a hatchet???

B: That is NOT how that happened. He tied him up and set that house on fire. But now he's gonna hit that guy in the head 20 times. And now he's Rorschach. There is no Laura, only Zuul.

M: ...Dana!!

B: Oh...Dana....is that from...

M: Ghostbusters!

B: I didn't wanna say it and have you be like - No it's from the Exorcist!

M: That would have been pretty funny in the exorcist. There is no Pazuzu, only Zuul.

B: Rorschach delivers the iconic line - I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me. The angrier he gets the more gravelly his voice gets. Meanwhile back at the ranch...Lori looks at Dan's shit.

M: You gotta be more specific. In this movie it might be actual shit. She's looking at this ship.

B: He's got some cool etchings, and a stamp collection. She sets things on fire. In the comic she thought it was the cigarette lighter. That's not how you put out a fire.

Laurie is an expert firefighter.

M: She doesn't have any brains.

B: She's an animatronic being controlled offscreen. Everything is so bland in this movie. We really aren't given any reasons to connect with Dan and Laurie.

M: This scene isn't helping either. It's boring and we don't care what's happening because we don't fucking care about Dan and Looooooorie. I can't think of a couple with less chemistry than these two.

B: Do you know what this means??

M: Yes.

B: We're getting close to the sex scene. It's like a case study in how not to do a sex scene in a movie. It's like the most awkward horrible thing that can be done. These scenes were in the comic, but not like this.

M: They're not gonna bang right now anyway because Dan can't get it up because uh...Adrian isn't doing gymnastics in the background and Unforgettable isn't playing.

B: Patrick Wilson's titty.

M: Did we really need to...

B: It's okay. Patrick Wilson is reasonably attractive. I would give those titties a six. Maybe a seven. Compared to having to see Malin Ackerman's tits, I would give them an 11. They're better than Manhattan's tits, which are cgen and disgustingly hyperdetailed.

M: BACK TO RORSCHACH. Who is being threatened by a little person named Big Figure because that's fucking funny. I guess. But it's also canon. And now Dan's dreaming but there's no actual meaning here because they do it wrong.

B: It really would have been better to put that in there after Dan and Laurie stop trying to bang instead of going to Rorschach?

M: And then IMMEDIATELY back to the animated parts with NO warning.

B: That was the worst editing I've ever seen. Sharks are eating the corpse boat.

M: I'm so confused. How did that shark get back up into the boat thing....

B: Who the fuck cares anymore.

M: Back to reality?? Snoop Dogg threatens the comic reading man because uh...

B: Snap back to reality...OH there goes gravity...something about spaghetti. And now back to Dan who is staring naked at his suit. There's too many behinds in this movie.

M: Are you gonna rate it?

B: I like plenty of naked behinds in other contexts.

M: I'm not even gonna ask.

B: Dreiberg is pretty ripped for being supposedly flabby and old. Laurrrrrie decides they should go fight crime.

Unfortunately, Malin Akerman.

M: Night Owl's costume is so bad. Like Ozymandias’ costume and...most of the costumes.

B: Laurie's costume is mostly see through because she can't fight crime if she's not sexy. We don't get any explanation of Dan's bird love in the movie. He's a good bird boy. That's a tongue twister.

M: They're saving people from a fire. I kinda want to go take a nap.

B: Why is he shooting into the burning building???

M: I don't know! Oh it's a water tower.

B: I thought he was just shooting up a burning building.

M: I'm sorry but she would be DEAD from that backdraft. There is no way. So now they gotta drop people off so they can bang in the owlship. Which I don't wanna see. SKIP.

B: This isn't how this happened in the comic at all.

M: Back to Rorschach again. They don't do the whole language pun thing which was so fucking cool in the comic. Big Figure. Small world. Why is all Rorschach's shit cut out??? Don't tell me they didn't have time. They see one dead guy and they know Rorschach is alive?

B: Professional dead guy appraiser.

M: Oh yeah there's a whole prison riot going on but we don't know why in the movie because they don't explain it.

B: Now Dan and Lari are gonna beat up some guys but it's so fucking dark it's like I'm watching Fan4stic. More slow mo.

M: They had to cut Rorschach's story to make time for all the slow mo.

B: I hate Night Owl's outfit. Leri's doesn't look anything like the comic either. I punched that guy! I'm a strong independent woman!

M: Rorschach goes to kill Big Figure in the bathroom which also fucks up what happened in the comic. Luri calls Rorschach an idiot and they start bitch fighting but Dan is like come on we gotta go. We have an hour left. We have to start building each other up.

B: (sings Livin' on a prayer )

M: NOT HOW THIS HAPPENED EITHER. Jon shows up after they get back and kidnaps Liri to mars where there's no air because he's a dick like that.

B: Diet bepis.

M: Laurie somehow knows she's on Mars because there's a giant glass sculpture there. Like on Mars. You know. Back to Snoop and his gang who randomly decide to take out Night Owl but pick the wrong one and beat up Hollis. Poor Hollis.

Yep, definitely Mars.

B: Obviously the editors don't care about the timeline either. Liri's mother is on the phone with Hollis talking about what happened the night before but I thought this was the same night? Who genuinely cares?

M: This movie is rated almost 5 stars on Amazon. You go Hollis, punch at least one of em!

B: The gang beats up Hollis and kills him because it's JUST LIKE THE COMIC. Hollis has flashbacks while he's getting killed. And killed by his own award. But we don't get the scene where he GOT the award. It's fine. I'm not mad.

M: Back to fucking Rorschach and Dan and Laurie and I'm tired of typing that sentence. Rorschach suddenly is sure it's the pyramid people doing all the bad but he has no fucking evidence? Dan lays the smack down and the bromance can continue.

Just like back in college...

B: We're just two dudes in a rad bromance....They're going to an underworld bar because they're looking for seedy dudes.

M: How would these dudes even know about the pyramid thing?

B: That's just how Rorschach do. Follow the money. Rorschach writes a lot of youtube conspiracy videos.

M: Dan finds out some dude helped kill Hollis.

B: Also back on Mars...ugh..his dick is moving back and forth and I know that’s realistic but ugh...It’s different when it’s just a still panel in a comic and not...this...you're made of molecular nothingness, can't you just suck it up into your body or something?

M: Back on Mars Jon goes on his seven hour long predestination trip while his dick wiggles.

B: Jon I have feelings, pls believe me.

M: You can't fucking...you can't...you can't fucking take all this dialogue and re-arrange it and make it work. It doesn't work, now it just seems empty and nobody cares. Lauree was having a total breakdown because Jon wanted HER to make him save the entire earth and now just stand there looking bored.

B: Dan and Ror have broken into Veidt's office searching for answers. Dan is an expert hacker. Creator's name was Jeff Jeff, born on the eighth of Jeff, 19-Jeffity-Jeff. So I put in 'Jeff'.

M: Do they even mention in the movie that Adrian Veidt is supposed to be like, the 'smartest man in the world'? Actually, we don't really learn anything about Veidt in this movie...What do we really know about him? He's rich? He makes plans? Possibly homosexual?

B: *Hacker voice* I'm in. Boys Folder, iconic. Veidt doesn't really keep his most secret government and corporate secrets very...well-hidden. Next to his boys, yanno.

M: Adrian had a team of like three people in the comic. His suit...

B: It has nip- It has NIPPLES!!!

M: *chokes to death laughing* I've never heard anyone so angry about nipples in my whole life.

A toast, to my suit’s nipples.

B: Did Batman and Robin teach the human race nothing???!!? Nipples on superhero costumes = a bad idea. Veidt has killed all his scientists. AND NOW - My Bubastis rant. Whhyyyyy is Bubastis in this fucking movie??????? She just shows up in this scence with NO EXPLANATION. Just, "oh hey...Ozymandias has a giant mutant lynx." and why would she even EXIST in this continuity - he doesn't need the eugenics program in this version of the story. Was he just like "I want a mutant cat, please make me one."

M: How do we still have 50 minutes of movie left??? Oh, I guess...Tales of the Black Freighter. This is still going on. Crazy guy has reached land and kills some people, believing his hometown has been taken over....who really cares. Was there really anyone clamoring for them to put this into the movie?

B: *basically says nothing for this entire bit*

M: *basically says nothing for this entire bit*

B: NO TRANSITIONS, YEAH!

M: Now we're back to have the least impassioned discussion about saving the world ever. "Jon, no, everyone will die...." That's not how this happened - that's not how ANY of this happened. Y'know what, Jon, ya big naked blue freak...

B: Laurie sounds like a teenager who's mad that her parents won't buy her a car.

M: "Do that thing you do..." This is making me irrationally angry, and I've seen this TWICE.

B: This part makes me SO mad. Irrationally mad. They fuck this up so much. We do not get any context to explain how much Laurie hated the Comedian, and why him being her father is such a big deal.

M: Also, in the comic, it was a big deal that Laurie had this realization of her own volition. It came naturally as she tried to fight back her past memories (which were not at all like this), instead of just being magically brought out by Jon.

B: They completely squander Laurie's biggest moment of emotional development, in turn squandering Jon's turning point in deciding to save the world

M: I liked the whole snowglobe bit in the comic...I thought that was like really powerful, but in this she just...throws a temper tantrum.

B: Ugly cry face. At least...I think she's crying. Might just have smelled some expired doppelganger. Jon's speech about life is also...rushed. And they leave out my favorite line. “Come, dry your eyes, for you are life - rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg.”

Acting, I think...

M: Laurie looks like she doesn't understand a single thing Jon's saying to her right now. "Jon...you're talking science again, and I don't understand it."

B: I've already complained about the inappropriate scoring. It hasn't gotten any better.

M: So Dan and Ror are heading to Antartica at record fucking speed. Rorschach tries to tell Dan how to drive the fucking ship Dan designed and built. All Along the Watchtower is playing at record loudness for no reason. Somehow they made it to Antartica in five minutes.

B: They're heeeeeere.

M: If Veidt knew they were coming why wouldn't he just open the door instead of letting them fry it with lasers? Veidt is sitting there pretending that he doesn't notice them creeping in to kill him. Suddenly we are shown that Veidt is somehow some superhuman fighter and gymnast which wasn't included in the movie at all.

B: Come on and SLAM. Hello there, sailors.

M: And now for some exposition while a vigorous swordfight is going on. Not really. Veidt is still going on and on about how smart he is and how he organized all this shit.

B: As with any mystery, it ends with the villian explaining how he did everything.

M: In the comic he literally says he's not a comic villian and wouldn't do that, but you know.

B: I could have sworn there was an alien in here....like there was something vaguely about an alien?? This is alien invader erasure and I will not tolerate it. That would break the suspension of disbelief, I guess. If Veidt wanted to make an alien and use that to unite the world.

M: Yeah that would be bonkers, especially in a world where giant naked blue men with god powers exist.

B: He is smart enough not to monologue BEFORE he pulled off his evil plan.

M: And now we see earth exploding or whatever because of Veidt and uh...suddenly we're back at the fucking animated comic.

B: The whole idea of him uniting the world against Manhattan just doesn't click for me. The alien was supposed to be neutral, to be anomalous. It also doesn't make sense that he would drive Jon to leave earth.

M: Way to pull us the fuck out of the super important ending. Slow zoom back out to the kid reading the comic who complains that it makes no sense. I feel you kid.

B: They're trying to pull everything together here with the clock and the therapist guy and everything but it was all crushed by the alien invader but now it's just Dr Manhattan's..energy force?? But they'll be able to recognize that it was Manhattans? Didn't they know that Veidt was trying to use his energy too??

M: Yes.

B: Oh it's bad. Oh no.

Bubastis’ one moment in the movie...

M: Jon and Lurie return to earth post uh..time bomb or whatever. Jon realizes the energy signature is here. He is not muddled or confused or anything though like he is in the book, so he just immediately goes to Antartica to kick Veidt's ass but then immediately goes through the intrinsic field subtractor like a fucking moron. Why would this even effect Jon? Why would the smartest man alive not figure out that it wouldn't work?

B: Laurie says things....she shoots Veidt but he catches the bullet because he's uh..just that radical. Stuff is happening.

M: For not being a comic book villian Veidt is super fucking acting like a goddamn comic book villian. Jon shows up all super huge now and he's kinda mad at Veidt. But not that mad. Veidt uses his magical remote control to show melty face Nixon demanding peace.

B: And this works because...why not?

M: Because the fucking movie has to end SOMETIME. In the comic there were hundreds of screens showing everything but you know...America. Veidt is like - this is our victory Jon and Jon SHOULD be like - you used me to blow people up dude. Fuck you.

B: Uh uh, can't do that, you'll screw up the peace! Rorschach is like fuck no, I ain't keeping this a secret.

M: I'd side with Rorschach with this tbh, Veidt is a fucking madman. He's like the fucking Governor from the Walking Dead. Ror goes out to try and tell the world but Jon kills him.

B: But of course he wouldn't do that, he told the world 35 minutes ago!

M: He literally did. Rorschach explodes and Dan gets all sad. That was my favorite Rorschach! Now Patrick Wilson's ugly cry face.

I loved that Rorschach like a Rorschach...

B: Jon decides to leave and Laurie is like but why and he's like - well I can't go back to earth NOW.

M: I don't understand why Dan is trying to kick Veidt's ass now. He already agreed to let the mass murder slide. Veidt seems unconcerned.

B: We don't get the whole nothing ever ends quote either, which was a big deal in the comic.

M: They fucked the ending hard though. Like with a chainsaw.

B: They fucked the whole movie hard. With like 17 giant dicks. This shit is way fucked.

M: So I guess Dan and Lbrbbrie go back home? And visit her mom cos you know.

B: And all the reconciliation Lrry had to do in the comic is reduced to one pathetic encounter with her mother. And it means NOTHING because we only get one little scene where Loree is SAD. The whole movie is this way. It's just a bunch of stuff that HAPPENS.

M: I don't give a shit about any of these characters. There's a lot of Lyrie and Dan kissy facing and talking about stuff that doesn't matter now.

B: Nothing ever ends but that's not..at all the way it was supposed to be done...at all.

M: WHY ISN'T THIS OVER, GOD. Straight outta the fucking comic we get the last bit where the greasy kid pulls Rorschach's fucking notebook out of the crank file to publish it so 30 years later they could write the mess that is Doomsday Clock.

B: Not EVEN gonna get into that. That's a whole other screaming fit. But that’s a comic, not a movie.

M: *AGGRESSIVE HEADBANGING TO DESOLATION ROW*

B: *AGGRESSIVE HEADBANGING TO DESOLATION ROW*

M: I don't have any closing thoughts. I'm tired of typing. I hate this movie. I hate what they do to every fucking Alan Moore venture. He deserves better. Write less deep shit Alan and they might actually do you right one day.

B: I find the existence of this movie to be a highly overrated phenomenon. I do, however, fucking love the My Chemical Romance cover of Desolation Row.

Munch and Biscuits out, yo.

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: John Cena and the Secrets of Peacemaker

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

John Cena is everywhere. He’s a seasoned television host, currently co-hosting TBS’ absurdly fun Wipeout, a #1 New York Times bestselling author with two new books on shelves, and one of the most in-demand, silver screen actors appearing in comedies, family films, and unsurprisingly, action movies alike. For someone whose catchphrase is “You can’t see me!” we sure have been seeing a lot of Cena.

Over Cena’s 18 years in the WWE, the charismatic sports entertainer has collected 16 World Titles and served as the face of the company and moralistic brand ambassador. Cena reigned at the top of the WWE pecking order longer than past favorites like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and did so with a smile, whether the WWE Universe was behind him or not. Like most of the company’s top stars, Cena inevitably found his way to Hollywood and, after some half-hearted initial forays, has found himself to be an adept and engaging screen presence. You don’t log that many hours on weekly live television without learning how to be a skilled performer.

This summer, Cena’s star looks like it will be shining brighter than ever. Not only will he serve as the main antagonist in the latest Fast & Furious film, F9, but he’s set to make his debut in the DCEU as Peacemaker in James Gunn’s highly anticipated The Suicide Squad. He told us all about it and more in this exclusive interview…

Den of Geek: How did you get the role of Peacemaker?

John Cena: I had tried my hand at trying to crack the DC code for a long time with multiple failures. It was brought to my attention that James had an interest in me playing Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad, and he just wanted to meet with me in person to solidify his instincts. His reputation is one thing, but to see him in action…I got to actually go to the production offices and just see all of their preparation. It’s like nothing I’d ever seen before. 

He really just prepares as good as, or better than, anyone and adds to that his passion for filmmaking and his passion for storytelling. I think he sees his story and then he puts together a list of suspects that could be possible fits, and I was one of those and we hit it off. 

Based on your physique and your background in sports entertainment, many people expected you to book more of these macho action hero roles, but you’ve sort of subverted that expectation with movies like Trainwreck and Blockers. Is Peacemaker meant to continue that subversion of audiences’ preconceived notions about you or does it sort of play into them?

Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with diving into preconceived notions, if that’s who you are. I mean, if you can remember, that’s exactly what I did at first. I did macho action movies that were complete failures. So I did that and it wasn’t really who I was at the time.

I compare the experience by saying I got to be put in these action sequences with these tremendous stunts, but yet I was doing that every night in front of 20,000 people and the electric passion you feel and certainly the love and excitement I have had and will have for WWE is unwavering. So given the choice between doing stunts surrounded by 36 cameras and no one else watching or doing stuff in a live arena, I wanted to be in the ring. Especially at that point in my life when I began doing these movies, that would be 2004. I was literally just getting comfortable on the WWE canvas and deciding that that was really where I wanted to be.

Fast forward to now, a decade and a half later, and I don’t think anything’s out of reach, with Fast Nine coming up, that certainly is a blockbuster action installment. The Suicide Squad has a lot of gore and a lot of action involved in it, but it’s me realizing who I am and who I’m not.

I think that’s why you see me all over the map from family movies that Playing With Fire to R-rated comedies like Trainwreck to PG-13’s like Daddy’s Home, to a DC movie like The Suicide Squad, to a straight-up blockbuster action like F9. I have an R-rated comedy coming out on Hulu called Vacation Friends, to a straight-up action two-hander with Jackie Chan called Project X that was filmed in China. Everyone always asks, “Well, what’s the next movie you’re looking for?” And my answer is always the same. I say, “I’ll know it when I read it.” I just like to read stuff and see myself in the story. Because that’s the one thing that’s really helped me with WWE, me being able to absorb the story with whoever I stand across the ring from.

Based on what we’ve seen in the trailers, it almost seems like Peacemaker could be a warped version of your character in WWE. Did you draw any inspiration specifically from the “John Cena,” boy scout-esque character?

I remember meeting with James and asking if I should dive into the comics history of Peacemaker, and he specifically told me not to. I think that’s because James likes to navigate his story. He just was like, “you have what I’m looking for. Just be yourself, and if you’re willing to take direction, I think we can do something special.” 

I originally had approached this character as much more of an angular, drill sergeant, Full Metal Jacket-esque personality, and about 20 minutes into filming our first scene, James came over to me and was like, “This is not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a douchey, bro-y Captain America.” We do draw from the do-gooder side of John Cena, who has a strong set of values and doesn’t waver from those values. So the answer is yes, but not in my eyes. Whenever I play a role in a movie, it really is never myself. Whereas WWE is the odd thing that a lot of times you have to create an extension of yourself because the narrative is just so damn long. 

The Suicide Squad are a bunch of super-villains and every villain has to believe what they’re doing is right and just, and it’s just their warped perspective of society that makes them evil. I think that’s a great way to describe Peacemaker. He thinks what he is doing is right and just. He just has a really abstract perspective.

What’s it been like to work with James Gunn and develop this character together? 

It’s amazing. He provides you the freedom to take chances, very much like Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer did in Trainwreck, but man, his preparedness and his commitment to narratives in their entirety, from things as simple as the score— it can’t just be a song, it needs to be this particular song at this particular point. He is passionately immersed in the totality of the experience. I just let go and realize that I am far from the smartest person in the room. I’m going to be my nice little piece, pun intended, on the chessboard and let the master figure out what the opening is and what the next move is.

Peacemaker is also getting an HBO Max series. How does it feel to be entrusted with what is essentially the first television series in the DCEU?

I’m very excited. DC has been trying to create excitement and buzz and it has had tremendous success and it has had its share of setbacks, but at the same time they know what their fans want and they know the satisfaction that their fans are looking for. I really think they’re stepping up to give fans what they’ve been waiting for. They’re taking bold and brave chances with completely new characters like you see in The Suicide Squad or completely new takes on all the properties that they have in their bank. I think both of these projects, The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, are steps in the right direction.

Did it help to have such a strong grasp on the character from working on the movie first? Or do you think there are aspects of your performance that you found while filming the series that you thought, “Man, I wish I would’ve had this light bulb go off while I was filming the movie.” 

Man, hindsight’s a dirty rabbit hole to go down. If I could tell my former self a bunch of stuff it would be like Hot Tub Time Machine. So it’s just… That’s not the way I operate. I’m absolutely grateful for what’s put in front of me. I just try my best every day to do my best every day. I don’t look back on any experience saying “I wish I would have” I look back on experiences and say “What did I learn?”

Dwayne Johnson is also coming into the DCEU. I think anybody that knows the history you share would love to see you guys square off on the big screen. Do you have any hopes for your respective characters crossing paths someday?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Well, like I said before, I think the DCU is making steps in the right direction, and certainly, there’s a lot of buzz behind Black Adam as well. We’re all kind of under the same umbrella. So do I have hope? I always have hope. I know audiences really enjoyed what we were able to do [in WWE] and if we’re able to transfer that excitement and passion from live entertainment to the big screen, I think it seems like a pretty logical jump, but I don’t make those choices. So all I can do is just keep doing me, man.

The Suicide Squad opens on Aug. 6 in theaters and HBO Max. 

Check out more on The Suicide Squad in the latest issue of Den of Geek!

The post The Suicide Squad: John Cena and the Secrets of Peacemaker appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3aNmJui

[marypsue]

Hive [1 / 2]

Warnings for mind control (sort...of), slight body horror, and slight gore/animal death (don't worry, the pig is safe). 

Suggested listening for this chapter: “Hold No Guns” by Death Cab for Cutie.

Part One // Part Two

on AO3

...

Dipper, unsurprisingly, notices it first.

"Is it just me, or have people been acting...weirder than usual lately?" he asks, from flat on his back on the porch, basking in the heat of the sinking sun and the chill of the water evaporating off of him and the dull, slow ache in all his muscles from running around with Soos ambushing (okay, being ambushed by) Wendy and Mabel with water guns all afternoon. The wood underneath his back is rough and sun-warmed, both splinters and heat slowly working their way into his skin, and from where he lies he can just see a sliver of glaring blue out of the corner of his right eye, past the edge of the sagging porch roof.

"Define 'weirder than usual'," Wendy says, from the couch somewhere to Dipper's left, her voice lazy and languid as the quiet buzz from the trees out ringing the yard. Dipper can't muster the energy to turn and look at her; he remembers her falling sprawled across the cushions, one arm up over the back. As far as he knows, she hasn't moved.

"Yeah, Dipper, this is Gravity Falls -" Mabel starts, and Dipper groans.

"That's why I said 'weirder than usual', Mabel. Weirder than usual."

"I dunno, dawgs, Dipper's got a point," Soos, ever the lifesaver, says, and Dipper flops an arm weakly up into the air for Soos to slap palms with. "Like, Abuelita's bridge club's been meeting here while Melody’s up in Portland visiting her sister? And I'm pretty sure when they came over last week two of them were, like, talking to each other. But without talking, doods."

"Wait, really?" Dipper asks, almost interested enough to sit up and look Soos in the eye. Almost, but not quite. "Soos, your abuelita's got a couple of telepaths in her bridge club?"

He hears, rather than sees, Soos shrug. "Dunno. Abuelita threw 'em out for cheating, I didn't have time to ask 'em where they're from."

Before Dipper gets a chance to introduce Soos to the definition of the word 'telepathy', though, the door leading into the Shack creaks open and Stan's heavy footsteps thud out onto the porch, shaking up through Dipper's back until he can feel each one in his chest. "Who wants popsicles?" Stan waits a moment for the chorus of 'me!'s to die down, and then adds, "Well, you better get your wallets ready, then, 'cause these suckers're two - no, five dollars apiece!"

Dipper doesn't see what happens next, but he's pretty sure it involves Wendy and Mabel, a couple of water guns, and grand theft popsicle.

...

Ford, once Dipper gets a chance to talk to him, is a little more receptive.

"Unusual behaviour, you say?" he asks, putting down the soldering iron and raising his mask to look Dipper in the eye. There's a frown creasing his forehead, the kind of distant look that Grunkle Stan gets sometimes when he’s overwhelmed by a returning memory, and Dipper feels a twinge of guilt constrict his chest. "I ought to look into this. It might be nothing, but - better safe than devoured by a being of pure horror from the nightmare realm!" He flashes a bright smile in Dipper's direction, one that doesn't make the guilt squeezing Dipper's ribs together ease at all.

"It's...probably nothing," Dipper says. "Or - if it is, it's definitely not Bill's style. I don't know, it's not like people are really acting any different, they just..." He ends up squeezing two fistfuls of empty air and shrugging, trying to convey something he can't quite put into words.

There's a chill in the basement, even with the portal in a thousand weirdly-shimmering pieces on the floor, a draft that smells of damp and concrete and cold earth that snakes down the back of Dipper's neck and under his vest, making all the hairs stand up in a long line down his spine. The crease in Ford's brow doesn't change.

"Even so," he says, gruff and short, and Dipper waits for the rest of the sentence, a little unsurprised when nothing more is forthcoming. The draft trails like insubstantial fingers down his back. Even so.

...

Dipper's pretty sure that he's been invited along to the graveyard with Wendy and her friends at least partly out of pity, since Mabel's left him behind to go down to Bend for the day with Candy and Grenda to find Grenda a dress for this fundraiser gala Marius invited her to, but he's not complaining. Wendy's friends are cool, Wendy herself is especially cool, and Dipper's not about to turn up his nose at an opportunity to hang out with them. Especially not now that he is, actually, technically a teen himself.

It's a perfect day for it, too - not too hot, a slight breeze ruffling the tops of the trees that ring the graveyard and whipping the tall pillars of cloud overhead into weird and fantastic shapes. Dipper is distracted enough - by the clouds and their enormous shadows racing over the grass, and the birdsong off in the trees somewhere that almost sounds like human voices, and the smell on the wind that promises thunder later, and definitely not by Wendy's hair in the sunlight - that he trips over the handle of a discarded spade and nearly falls face-first into a freshly-dug grave.

Lee catches him while he's still pinwheeling his arms on the edge, reaching out and scooping him up around the waist. "Whoa, careful there, little dude!"

"I'm not little," Dipper grumbles, as Lee balances him back on his feet. He's not. He's grown a full two inches this year. (Never mind that Mabel's grown three, and packed on nearly twenty pounds of pure muscle just from hauling Waddles around. Dipper's gonna catch up one of these days.)

Lee isn't listening. He's peering down into the open pit with an expression halfway between fascination and disgust. "Oh, dude, what is that?"

"Ugh, tell me it's not zombies again," Wendy says, rolling her eyes, but Nate's joined them at the edge of the grave, leaning precariously out over the mouth to get a better look at whatever Lee's seen. Now that he's thinking about it, Dipper thinks he can detect a note of rot in the smell of fresh, wet earth.

He leans cautiously over the lip of the grave, and looks down.

There's something shining in the dirt right at the very bottom of the grave, something yellow-white and gently curved. It looks like a rib.

Robbie cracks his knuckles, stretching with the grin that means he's about to do something phenomenally stupid for attention. "Stand back, ladies, let the professional handle this." He looks around, and then asks, "Hey, where's Tambry? Wasn't she supposed to meet us here?"

"She's your girlfriend, aren't you supposed to be keeping track of stuff like that?" Nate asks. Robbie's ears turn red, and he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

"Whatever," he mutters, succinctly.

Wendy nudges him with her shoulder. "Weren't you gonna fight the big bad zombie for us?" she asks, and the blush drains out of Robbie's face so fast Dipper would almost think he's been attacked by a vampire or a giant leech or something. Dipper doesn't think the rib has moved at all; he kind of doubts it's an active zombie, but he's not telling Robbie that.

"A-actually, my knee's been kind of acting up," Robbie stutters, his gaze darting around the group and finding no sympathy. "Otherwise I would totally -"

"Fine, you big baby," Wendy interrupts, unholstering her axe from its usual place at her hip and leaping effortlessly down into the pit. After a moment, her voice floats up from six feet underground. "There's no zombies down here, guys."

"Wait, really?" Robbie asks, and then, defensive, "I mean, I knew that all along, I'd never have let you go down there if -"

"Man, shut up," Lee says, and Robbie's mouth snaps shut, his shoulders curling up around his ears as he shoots a dirty look in Lee's direction.

"What is it?" Dipper calls down to Wendy, who pokes at the rib with the toe of her boot. It falls over, with a small shower of dirt, revealing several pale vertebrae and what looks like half a shattered pelvis.

"Think maybe you should ask what it was," Wendy calls back up. "Looks like...half a raccoon, maybe?" She pauses a moment, turning over more earth with her toe. The smell of rotting that Dipper had noticed earlier rushes up, smacks him full across the face, and he has to swallow down a sudden surge of bile. "I dunno. It's pretty fresh, but it's also pretty stripped. Looks like somebody chewed the bones to get the marrow out."

"Dude," Lee says, halfway between disgust and awe.

"Somebody?" Robbie asks, a slight quaver in his voice. Wendy shrugs.

"Yeah dude, these look like human teeth marks."

“Wait, how do you know what human teeth -”

“Apocalypse training every year ring a bell, dude?” Wendy shrugs. “And you were all here for the zombie uprising too, you can’t tell me you don’t know what human teeth marks on bone look like.” She looks around at the boys gathered around the top of the grave. “Seriously, just me?”

"Oh man, does that mean one of the zombies is loose around here somewhere?" Nate complains.

Robbie mutters a bitter, "It better not be," before giving a resigned sigh and walking over to grab the abandoned spade Dipper'd tripped over. "All right, I'm gonna go tell my parents we got another walker."

"Cool. I'm gonna not hang out in the spooky deserted graveyard with a zombie on the loose," Nate says, and Lee reaches up for a high five.

"Buddy system, bro?"

"You know it."

"Guess that leaves you and me," Wendy calls up to Dipper, who casually steps back from the edge of the pit so she can't see his face. "Is there, like, a ladder up there or something?"

By the time Wendy gets out of the grave, she and Dipper are the only ones left in the graveyard. The clouds overhead have stacked up close against each other, and the patches of shadow that sweep over last longer each time, the warm summer air cut by the chill of the wind. That promised thunderstorm feels a lot closer now.

"It's weird that Tambry ditched," Wendy says, as she vaults over a gravestone, Dipper walking around it beside her. He notices that she hasn't put away her axe. "But you know what's weirder? I haven't had a single notification from her since, like, this morning. And none of the guys said anything about it, but I haven't seen Thompson around for a day or so either."

"Tambry hasn't liked any of your posts since this morning?" Dipper asks, horrified, and Wendy makes a face that's almost a smile but really more of a grimace.

"And not one single status update."

"Wow. That's even worse than the time we almost all got eaten by convenience store ghosts," Dipper remarks, and Wendy nods.

"If this were a horror movie, Robbie'd be stumbling across her strategically-placed body right about...now." She glances back over her shoulder, and when no screams echo out from behind the hill separating them from the funeral home, shrugs. "Guess we're still safely in weird fiction," she cracks, with an elbow-nudge to Dipper's ribs that tells him she means it as a joke.

"Hey, that reminds me - have you tried that book I loaned you yet?" Dipper asks, rather than trying to eke out a nervous chuckle, and Wendy grins.

"Eat, Pray, Lovecraft? Heck yeah I have." She stuffs her axe back into its holster, her smile shrinking. "I gotta admit, though, I think some of it went over my head. And after last summer - I mean, horrifying demonic entities from outside of our dimension just lose some of their terror when you've seen one do a kegstand."

Dipper kind of disagrees, but he doesn't tell Wendy that.

...

The trees are dripping the next morning, needles glittering with leftover droplets of rain. The gravel delta that serves as a parking lot is transformed into a mass of tiny rivers, water rippling into little 'v's as it races over the pebbles. The porch roof drips morosely, the soft hiss and shush of rainwater through the overflowing gutters underlying the quiet dimness of the morning.

Dipper lies snugged down in his bed, watching the pale, greyish-pink triangle of light sink slowly down the wall across from him as the sun rises. The lingering smell of attic, must and dust and something thick and vaguely medicinal that he thinks might be mothballs but also bears a weird resemblance to Stan's cologne, tickles his nose, and Mabel's soft snores from the bed against the other wall mingle with the rush of water down the roof into a soothing white noise. In the quiet, the attic seems vast and full of air and light. The bed is so warm and deep that Dipper doesn't want to move, and each time he blinks, the triangle of light slides a little further down the wall than it did during the last blink.

He only knows for sure he's awake when Stan's heavy fist pounds on the attic door, his voice rattling the thin wood from outside. "Rise and shine, lazybones! We're goin' to the diner for breakfast as a family! This's got everything to do with my love and generosity and nothing to do with the fact I got banned from the grocery store!"

Mabel stretches, yawning, and groans as she pushes herself up into a sitting position. She makes some sleepy noise as Dipper rolls over onto his side, pulling the covers tighter around his shoulders, trying to hold in the warmth. "Mmmmnnnnnnn 'snot morning yet."

"C'mon, Dippingsauce," Mabel yawns at Dipper with about half of her usual enthusiasm. The pink light that floods the attic makes her look, unfairly, much more awake than Dipper feels.

"Sssssummer," Dipper protests, but the soft, dreamy feeling is already draining out of him, wakefulness seeping in to take its place. He scrubs the heel of his right hand against his eyes, pushing back the covers with a yawn of his own. "Somebody tell Grunkle Stan the whole point of summer vacation is staying up late, then sleeping in."

Stan's voice echoes from the hall again. "Kids! C'mon, you're the only ones holding us up!" His voice drops in volume as he continues, "I asked Soos if he wanted to come but he said he had to open the Shack. Told 'im he could just blow it off but he said he had 'integrity', whatever that is. Hope it ain't catching."

Mabel and Dipper share a look, both trying not to laugh out loud. 

They both fail.

...

It's a full hour before the Pines family piles out of the Stanleymobile and into Greasy's Diner. The whole world smells fresh, like it's been washed clean by the rain, and there's a chill in the air that makes Dipper glad he decided to wear his puffy vest over his thick flannel, despite Mabel's opinion. 

Normally, after a storm like the one last night, the woods would be absolutely alive with birdsong, which is why it doesn't take Dipper longer than the short walk from the diner's parking lot to the door to figure out what's wrong. He nudges Mabel in the shoulder as they crunch across the patch of gravel that might once have held an attempt at a flowerbed but now only sprouts weeds and cigarette butts. "Mabel! Hey, did you notice how quiet it is out here?"

Mabel looks around, at the still-dripping trees, a thoughtful look on her face. "Huh. That's kinda weird. But not Gravity Falls weird," she adds, sternly, as Stan shoulders the door to the diner open, setting the bell over the door jangling and drowning out any odd noises Dipper might have listened for.

After the chill in the morning air, Greasy's even smells warm. Stan leads the way to their usual booth in the back, with a wink in Lazy Susan's direction. Dipper brings up the end of the little train, only to stop short only a few feet in.

Tambry's sitting in the booth nearest the door, and she's with Thompson. Just the two of them.

They both look up when Dipper leans against their table, like he's just interrupted a private conversation. But they definitely hadn't been talking when Dipper had stopped at the booth.

Weird.

"H-hey," Dipper stammers, into the teeth of Tambry's flat, unimpressed stare. "We missed you at the graveyard yesterday." Absently, he realises that her eyes are the exact same shade of green as Thompson's. He's never noticed before. Probably because they're always aimed down at her phone.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," Tambry says, half-turning like she's done with the conversation. Dipper takes a deep breath, raising his voice slightly.

"Wendy was worried about you guys, she said she hadn't seen any status updates from you all morning," he challenges Tambry, who glances briefly back at him. 

"Yeah, I guess I took like a monster nap." For the first time, a flicker of concern crosses her face, and she says, "Wait, was Robbie worried about me too?"

"Sure, why not," Dipper says. "Why aren't you with him, anyway? You two are still dating, right?"

Concern turns into confusion on Tambry's face, and then clears. She stares at Dipper, eyes narrowed. "Mabel put you up to this, didn't she."

"She...may have," Dipper says. It's not, technically, a lie.

"Well, you can tell her her matchmaking still holds up. Me and Thompson? Never gonna happen." Tambry rolls her eyes, apparently oblivious to the faint 'awwww' from Thompson, deflating slightly in the booth across from her.

"And Thompson! Where were you yesterday, man?" Dipper asks, turning to Thompson, who turns red. "You missed a zombie scare and Wendy finding half a dead raccoon."

"Oh, wow, I'm really sorry I missed out on that," Thompson warbles, sarcastically. Dipper has to cede that one to him.

Before he can ask any more questions, Lazy Susan's voice interrupts from behind Dipper. " 'Scuse me, hon. Soup's on!"

Dipper steps out of the way, and Susan takes his place, setting an enormous platter of eggs and bacon in front of each of the people at the table. Tambry actually groans, her face showing the most emotion Dipper thinks he's ever seen on her. "Finally! Oh my god, I'm so hungry I could eat the entire continent of Australia."

Thompson doesn't say anything, too busy shoveling forkfuls of fried egg into his mouth.

"Okay, well...good to know you're both okay," Dipper says, as Tambry tucks into her own food. He looks over at the table where his family are sitting, meets Ford's questioning gaze over the top of the booth. "I'm gonna...go get my own breakfast."

Thompson manages to swallow his mouthful of bacon for long enough to raise a hand and say, "See you round!" as Dipper walks away from their booth.

"Friends of yours?" Ford asks, as Dipper slides into the booth beside him. Mabel lets out an enormous bark of laughter, leaning across the table to smack Dipper on the arm.

"Friends of Wendy's." Her grin is both knowing and smug.

"Mabel," Dipper complains, and Mabel presses a hand over her mouth to cover her knowing giggles. Stan laughs, holding up a hand, and Mabel high-fives it, hard. "Seriously, it's not like that."

"I know that!" Mabel chirps. "You're just really easy to tease. Oh, and we ordered you pancakes because you were busy making goo-goo eyes at Tambry." She crosses her arms and leans her elbows against the table, looking intently at Dipper with that same knowing smile. "Or was it Thompson you had your eye on?"

"Oh my god, Mabel," Dipper sputters, unable to completely squash a laugh of his own at the face his sister makes. "Take off your matchmaker hat for five seconds, I'm not looking for an 'epic summer romance'. Neither of them showed up to hang out yesterday and Wendy was worried."

"Just those two?" Ford asks, quiet and serious. Dipper nods, and Ford frowns in thought. "Did you notice anything unusual about either of them during your conversation?"

"Seriously, poindexter? You wanna take a flashlight over there and shine it in their eyes?" Stan complains, then shrugs. " 'Cause if it'll make ya feel better, I'll hold 'em down for ya."

"Stanley, you're just saying that because you'll take any excuse to torment teenagers."

"Hey, I look at that as an unexpected bonus."

Dipper glances out around the side of the booth, but he can't see either Tambry or Thompson from where he's sitting. "I didn't notice anything," he says, at last, when he's sure he's not going to catch another glimpse and there's a break in Stan and Ford's good-natured bickering. "I mean, they both ordered huge breakfasts, but they're also both fifteen, sooo..."

This time, it's Ford who shoots Dipper a knowing smile, though it's far less smug than Mabel's. "Don't worry, my boy, you have more than enough time to hit a growth spurt."

"No way, José!" Mabel shouts, pumping a fist in the air. "Alpha twin for life!"

"Haha. Right. Keep gloating. While you still can," Dipper says, and Mabel sticks out her tongue.

Any further competition is cut short by the tantalising smell of fresh, hot pancakes wafting over the table. All four Pines look up to see Lazy Susan, loaded down with plates piled high with pancake stacks and a bottle of syrup.

A huge smile settles across Stan's face as his eyes land on her, and he reaches up to take the nearest two plates, passing one to Mabel. "Ahhh, a vision of loveliness. And you don't look half bad today either, Susan," he adds, his gaze shifting slightly from, Dipper realises, the pancakes to Susan's face.

"Oh, you old scoundrel," Susan titters, leaning over the table to set a plate of pancakes down in front of Dipper. Steam, barely visible, rises off the stack in little undulating waves, and Dipper's mouth waters.

"Oh, and this must be the mysterious handsome brother I've been hearing so much about!" Susan goes on, putting a platter of French toast and hashbrowns down in front of Ford with a smile and a flutter of her false eyelashes. 

Ford's ears turn red. Stan clears his throat.

"We're identical twins," he mutters, and then, "Susan, doll, wouldja grab us some fresh coffee?"

"Coming right up!" Susan says. She pauses a moment before she turns to leave, though, and Dipper can see the thought drifting across her face. "Say, none of you all seen a white and grey tomcat around, have you? Mister Whiskers got out the other night, the little rascal, and I haven't seen him since."

Mabel and Dipper meet each other's eyes across the table, and Mabel shrugs.

"We will definitely keep an eye out for your cat, Susan!" she says, brightly. "Does he come when you call his name?"

"If he feels like it!" Susan laughs at her own joke - at least, she obviously thinks it's a joke. "Thanks, you folks."

She bustles off towards the kitchen. Stan's got half a pancake stuffed into his mouth almost before she turns her back.

"Slow down, no one's going to try to take it from you," Ford says, fond exasperation colouring his words as he pops open the cap on the bottle of syrup and pours a small lake into the middle of his plate.

It isn't until they're leaving the diner and Dipper glances over at the now-empty booth where Thompson and Tambry had been sitting that he figures out what had rubbed him wrong about their conversation earlier.

The whole time they'd been talking, he hadn't seen Tambry check her phone once.

...

Dipper starts taking notes. It's always been the best way to organise his thoughts, after all, and if he's going to figure out what's going on in Gravity Falls this summer, he's going to need to keep track of every detail, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. He digs out the scuffed blue notebook he's been using as a sort of journal, sort of place to record good ideas or locations for episodes of that ghost hunting show that he's really looking at making now that he has access to the photography lab and the school's A/V equipment, opens to a new page, and scrawls the date and time at the top in blue ink.

He's still slouched on his bed, gnawing absently at the cap of the ballpoint he's using to write with and drumming his fingers against the page, when Mabel comes barrelling in, followed closely by Waddles. Mabel starts yanking open drawers in the dresser and flinging clothes out onto the floor behind her, while her pig trots over to bump his head against Dipper's arm and grunt hopefully up at him. Dipper smiles, and interrupts his pen-chewing to give Waddles a scratch under the chin. He's never seen a pig look quite so blissful.

"Dipper, have you seen my disco ball sweater?" Mabel asks, over her shoulder, and Dipper shrugs, shifting to get both hands free so he can give Waddles a scritch behind both ears at once.

"Thought you left it in Piedmont with the unicorn sweater."

Mabel turns, her eyes wide and her gaze flat and dead, like she's looking through a thousand miles of space. "I would never," she says, her voice heavy with quiet horror.

Dipper shrugs one shoulder. "You can look through your sweaters again, but I'm pretty sure you decided you only had room for one more and brought the one with the tinsel sleeves instead."

Mabel looks like she's about to burst into a wail of despair, but stops, snapping her fingers instead. "The tinsel sweater! That'll work." She slams the dresser drawer shut and launches herself at her bed instead, dragging a straining suitcase out from behind the head of the bed with some difficulty. The lid bursts open when she hoists it up into the bed, and a riot of colourful knitwear explodes out.

"Mabel?" Dipper asks, giving Waddles one last scratch before picking his pen back up.

"Yeah?"

"You...you really haven't noticed anything weird about town this visit?" He gnaws on his bottom lip.

Mabel must hear something in his voice, because she drops the handful of sweater she's holding and turns to face Dipper, sitting down on the floor with her back leaning against the box spring and mattress that make up her bed. "Look, we all know you're a paranoid panda. We love you anyway. You wouldn't be Dipper without the occasional wild goose chase after something spooky and supernatural."

Dipper feels himself deflate. He looks down at the chicken scratch of a list scrawled in his notebook, chomps down on the end of his pen and just holds it between his teeth.

"Yeah," he agrees, hollowly.

"But!" Mabel says brightly, and Dipper looks back up, to see her holding up a sweater with a cartoon alien holding a bottle of soda on the front, emblazoned with the slogan 'Take Me To Your Liter'. "That doesn't mean I don't want to go chasing wild geese with you!" She frowns. "Hey, you've got a big nerd-brain, does that expression make any sense to you?"

"I've never really understood it either," Dipper admits, cracking a smile when Mabel bursts out laughing. She gives a little sigh as her laughter dies down, smiling up at Dipper.

"So, let's go chase a wild goose! Who knows, we might even catch one."

...

With Mabel on the case with him, Dipper finally starts to feel like he's making some progress. All they really do is hang out, bum around the Shack with Wendy and tease Soos about his new exhibits or go to the pool or the arcade like they always do or tromp around in the woods, but having someone to talk through all his thoughts with (or...at, Mabel's input isn't always helpful or on-topic, though she does bring him back down to earth when his theories start getting away from him) helps Dipper get a better grasp of what he's seeing, what he's looking for. And Mabel notices stuff that Dipper never would've, or wouldn't have thought was important, like how Nate and Lee haven't had one single run-in with Blubs and Durland since the twins got to town, or how Gompers the goat hasn't been around lately, or how Tambry's mom has started wearing really bold red lipstick. (Dipper's not so sure that last one's really relevant, but he dutifully notes it down anyway. When he looks closer, trying to figure out if he's ever seen her wearing lipstick before, he realises he's never really noticed how much alike Tambry and her mom look. Maybe it's something to do with the striking green of both their eyes.) His little blue notebook fills up in no time.

Unfortunately, what it fills up with doesn't seem to add up to anything. When it was just Tambry and Thompson vanishing and then turning up hungry, and a stripped skeleton in the graveyard, it was pretty easy to point to zombies. But when Dipper and Mabel tag along to the pool with the teens - the older teens - Robbie mentions that his parents never did find an escaped zombie. He vanishes with Tambry behind the storage shed after that, with a grin that says they're definitely going to make out. 

Dipper doesn't get a chance to ask Robbie any more questions for a couple of days - he's a no-show for paintball the next afternoon, which Dipper tries very hard to pretend to be disappointed about. Robbie's a sore loser and an even worse winner. Tambry and Thompson team up against the rest of the group, their surprisingly flawless teamwork taking everyone down but Wendy, who emerges paint-spattered but victorious. Then the whole group haul their battered selves downtown for ice cream, where the cashier smiles and gives them a ten percent discount. She nods at Tambry and Thompson as they leave, like she knows them from somewhere, and they nod back.

"Okay, did that just happen?" Wendy asks, as they leave the shop, and Nate nods.

"She's usually such a grouch. Just because one time we thought it'd be funny to order all forty-two flavours in one cone."

Dipper pulls out his notebook.

...

The Shack is dead at ten o'clock in the morning, the early morning rush of people who plan their trips down to the minute having come and gone, the more sane population who sleep in on vacation not yet starting to trickle in. Dipper has set up camp on a stool by the cash register with a crossword puzzle book, facing the door so he's ready for anyone who might come in. Wendy slumps over the counter by the register, her face in her arms, and lets out the occasional groan. Mabel, sitting on the counter beside her, is busily braiding  and unbraiding Wendy's long hair.

"Why are we even open at this hour," Wendy complains, and Soos, leaning against the counter in his full Mr. Mystery regalia, frowns.

"What if some, like, little orphan kids came from like, deepest darkest Canada and the only thing they wanted to see was the Mystery Shack and it was closed, dood? Do you want to be the one to crush the dreams of little orphan children?"

"Uuuuuuugh," Wendy growls. "Stan was a horrible boss, but at least he never tried to make me actually care about this stupid job."

"Why are you so tired, anyway?" Mabel asks, and Soos nods.

"Yeah, dawg, what's the dilly? Yo."

Wendy doesn't raise her head from her arms this time, her voice muffled against the wood of the counter as she says, "Stupid Robbie's been bugging me to come to one of his stupid shows for, like, ever, so I actually went last night and that jerk didn't even show up. We waited for like an hour, then the band came on and did two songs without him, and then they just left."

"Sounds like you kind of dodged a bullet there," Dipper says, and Wendy groans again before pushing herself up to lean heavily on the counter on one elbow, her face in her hand. Mabel's braid creations slowly unravel around her head, giving her a little halo of stray red hairs.

"Look, I know you two have your, like, blood feud or whatever going on, but Robbie's still my friend. I guess. And that band is, like, the most important thing in the world to him." She frowns. "He wouldn't just flake out like that unless something was wrong. And I've tried texting and calling him, but he won't pick up his phone."

"Did you ask Tambry?" Mabel suggests, shrugging at the state of Wendy's hair and starting to pick apart the braids she'd put in.

"Tried that. She keeps saying he's 'fine, but sleeping'. Like, is he sick? Were they out together last night? Where the heck would they have even gone? And if he's been asleep all this time she should maybe take him to a hospital -"

The bell over the door jangles, and all four people around the counter look up.

"...hi," Pacifica Northwest says, and coughs into one hand. "I wanted to see whether Mabel was up for a rematch of last year's minigolf game." She tugs at the hem of her sweater, a shaggy yellow monstrosity with a llama on the front that Dipper vaguely remembers Mabel having given to Pacifica sometime during Weirdmageddon. "Just for...fff...un. Fun. That's that thing where there aren't any prizes or trophies and nobody really cares who wins, right?"

"Absolutely!" Mabel shouts, leaping down off the counter. She charges up to Pacifica and slings an arm around Pacifica's fuzzy-sweatered shoulders. Dipper's seen boiled lobsters less red than the shade Pacifica turns. "Wait, didn't the Lilliputtians swear eternal vengeance against us after last time?"

“Oh, you didn’t hear,” Pacifica says, still red, trying very hard to sound indifferent. “When the minigolf course opened up again this summer, none of the mechanisms were working. The Lilliputtians were gone. The minigolf course had to buy all new machinery from out of state.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Dipper says, putting down his crossword. “The Lilliputtians are gone? Where’d they go? Why’d they go?”

Pacifica shrugs. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Those little golf-ball-shaped weirdos can stay far, far away from me forever if they want to.”

Mabel’s giving Dipper a weird look, a ‘don’t make this into a monster hunt’ look, but Dipper ignores it.

“Can I come with you?” he asks.

...

There are no Lilliputtians at the minigolf course.

There are no tiny alien creatures piloting half a man-suit in the bowling alley.

There’s someone different delivering the mail, a reedy person Dipper doesn’t recognise. They don’t have anywhere near as much body hair as the previous mailman. (Or body odor.)

There are a few gaping holes in the sap under the abandoned church, but no mysterious shadows swooping overhead, no terrifying screeches in the distance. No sign of dinosaurs.

The lake is still and silent.

...

After hours of looking for something, anything, to prove he hadn’t just dreamed the entirety of last summer, Dipper finally finds the Multibear crouched at the back of his cave, deep in conversation with his many heads as he tosses things - mostly rocks, from what Dipper can see, but then again, it’s not like the Multibear has a lot other than rocks - into a sack the size of a compact car.

“Multibear,” Dipper says, and the Multibear starts, banging his top head on a low overhang.

“Dipper!” he says, but takes a step backwards. Dipper freezes in the mouth of the cave. Some of the heads around the Multibear’s waist are baring or snapping their teeth in his direction, and his friend has crouched down, into a position that would be easy to spring from. It’s hard to tell - bear faces don’t exactly show emotion the same way human faces do - but Dipper’s pretty sure the expression the Multibear’s wearing right now isn’t one of unfettered delight. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“I wanted to say hi, I haven’t seen you yet this summer,” Dipper says, looking around. The cave looks, if possible, even barer than the last time he saw it. “Dude, are you packing up? Are you leaving Gravity Falls?”

The Multibear fidgets. “Not...as such,” he says, his rich, deep voice taking on a note of disappointment. 

“Seriously? Come on, tell me. What’s going on?” Dipper asks, wishing he sounded more like a cool action hero demanding information and less like an upset kid whining about something he doesn’t understand. “I can’t find any sign of any supernatural creatures around Gravity Falls this summer, it’s like you guys all just disappeared. And everybody in town is acting -” He struggles for words, and ends up just going with, “weirder than usual. And I can’t figure out why.”

Dipper’s not expecting the Multibear to heave a sigh of relief, and pad gently down the hall to drape one enormous paw over his shoulder. The paw swallows Dipper’s shoulder and nearly covers his arm down to the elbow, heat radiating out from it like a blast furnace. This close, Dipper can smell the gamey, musty scent of bear, strong enough to make his eyes water.

“Dipper,” the Multibear says gravely, “I am sorry to hear that the recent happenings in Gravity Falls have given you cause for concern, but I must confess I am glad to hear you questioning what is taking place. I must admit that for a moment, I feared -” He bites off the end of his sentence.

“Is that why you’re leaving?” Dipper asks. He’s not entirely sure what the Multibear’s talking about, but he has a strong feeling that he’s going to want to keep listening.

“I hope I am not leaving,” the Multibear says, “only retreating for a time. Something has emerged in Gravity Falls which has made it exceedingly dangerous for my kind.”

Dipper sucks in a breath between his teeth. There’s a chill in the cave, a damp breath from its depths that makes a shiver walk its way slowly down his spine. “What?”

The Multibear shakes one head, the brow of his main head furrowing. “I myself am not certain what, exactly, has occurred - or is occurring - in your town, but there are whispers throughout the forest, between those of us who know the ways of weirdness. I must warn you. Something very dangerous walks among you. It is a very old, very canny enemy, and it may wear the face of one you trust the most.”

“I thought we beat Bill,” Dipper mutters, and the Multibear gives his shoulder a short squeeze.

“Unfortunately, Bill Cipher is not the only evil in this world.”

...

“Whatsa matter?” Mabel asks, as she slides into the backseat of the Stanleymobile to nestle beside Dipper, motioning for Pacifica to follow. “You look like somebody just pointed out the ghost behind you.”

Dipper spins to look behind him so fast that his head throbs, and Mabel laughs, giving him a shove in the arm. 

“I’m joking!” Her laughter dies away, though, when Dipper doesn’t join in. Pacifica pushes her golf clubs along the floor of the Stanleymobile, and Mabel unthinkingly lifts her feet to make room, not taking her eyes off Dipper’s face. “Seriously, bro, you look super spooked. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Dipper admits. 

Pacifica slides into the seat beside Mabel, and pulls the door closed behind her with a solid, final-sounding slam. 

“You don’t know?” Mabel asks, as she buckles herself into her seat, and Dipper shrugs.

“I mean, I know what happened. I’m not sure what it means, though.” Dipper tugs on his own seatbelt, before remembering he hadn’t taken it off when the Stanleymobile had pulled to a stop. 

“Oh, well, that’s different,” Mabel says. “Grunkle Stan? Can Pacifica stay over?”

“Hey, it ain’t my house,” Stan calls back from the driver’s seat, with a shrug. Mabel takes this as a ‘yes’, evidently, judging by her squeal of delight.

“Thanks,” Pacifica says, trying to buckle her own seatbelt and fumbling it, painfully. Even though her face is pointed down, all her concentration apparently on the buckle, what Dipper can see past her probably-bottle-blonde bangs is bright crimson again. “I know you’re poor and everything so having an extra mouth to feed is probably a big strain on your resources -”

“Friendly advice? You should’ve stuck with just ‘thanks’,” Dipper interrupts. Pacifica shrugs, finally clicking her seatbelt into place and burrowing her face down into the collar of her fuzzy llama sweater.

“You kids all properly restrained and not likely to go flying through the windshield?” Stan asks, meeting Dipper’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Dipper nods. “Great! Now nobody’s rich parents can sue me if I crash their kid into a tree.”

The Stanleymobile peels out of the minigolf course parking lot at speeds that are probably unsafe even for drivers who can actually see the road.

Stan asks, with practiced casualness, about the game after about five minutes of driving, and Dipper lets Mabel’s excited - and, like everything else ever to come from Mabel, wildly embellished - blow-by-blow recap of the game, with colour commentary from Pacifica, wash over him, gently eroding the tight knot of panic still pulsing in his chest. 

He digs in his backpack and pulls out his notebook, trying to take advantage of the dying orange glow of sunset to scribble down notes on everything he’s discovered so far today.

The Multibear’s warning still unsettles him. Dipper looks around, at Pacifica’s look of indignant embarrassment, Stan’s fond smile in the rearview mirror as he stares at the road, his sister’s happy, laughing face. 

...it may wear the face of one you trust the most.

Feeling slightly sick, Dipper closes his notebook, and tucks it back inside his backpack.

...

He’s woken bright and early the next morning by Pacifica’s shriek.

Dipper tumbles out of bed half-blinded by sleep, and promptly trips on the blankets he’s somehow entangled himself with, slamming face-first to the floor. His jaw cracks against the bare wood, and Dipper smells copper, tastes it in the back of his mouth. 

The pain hits him a moment later, when he’s unwound his legs from the blankets and pushed himself to his feet. He clutches his chin as he tears down the stairs, towards the source of the scream. If Pacifica’s freaking out because she saw a spider or a box of store-brand cereal or something, he’s going to be so mad.

But it’s not any of the above. Pacifica’s standing in her bare feet and one of the grunkles’ old t-shirts, which is obviously serving her as a nightshirt, in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes brimming with horror and one shaking finger pointing at the abomination that dominates the kitchen table. “What - what is that?” she demands, as Dipper skids on sock feet around the doorframe and into the kitchen.

Dipper takes one look at the half-formed thing on the table and breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s just one of Grunkle Stan’s taxidermy monsters. Soos was getting him to make a bunch while the Stans are inland, he’s tried to pick it up himself but Stan has more practice. And more ideas that don’t involve tentacles.”

“Taxidermy monsters?” Pacifica demands. She hugs her own arms as Dipper steps forward to inspect the thing a little closer. 

“Yeah, Grunkle Stan puts them together out of bits of a bunch of different dead animals and then passes them off as nonexistent ones. They’re a big hit at the Shack.” There’s glue spread out across the table, glue and wire and foam and clay, little chisels and brushes and scalpels and needles and other tools of the taxidermy trade that Dipper is surprised to see surrounding the thing in the middle of the table. “I’m honestly surprised he actually knows how to use all this junk. I saw him staple the head onto one once. Not with a special stapler or anything, just an office stapler.”

“Where...does he get the...bits of dead animals?” Pacifica asks, her discomfort clear even as she takes a slow, careful step forward. Dipper notices that she keeps a wary eye on the thing on the table, especially the places where the fur peels back to reveal shining bone.

“Usually it’s roadkill,” Dipper admits, leaning in closer. The armature Stan’s put together has the thing standing a little like a velociraptor, and he’s pretty sure the hind legs are stolen from a chicken, but he’s having a little trouble identifying the animal that makes up the foundation of the made-up monster.

It takes him a moment to realise that the marks he’s seeing on the bones weren’t made by a clumsy taxidermist, but by teeth. Blunt, flat teeth.

“Usually?” Pacifica says. 

“Sometimes it’s the carcass from last night’s chicken dinner,” Dipper admits. He gently tugs the fur down over the thing’s skull, noticing as he does how soft it is. 

The animal’s pelt, once properly spread out, is tabby-patterned, in a soft grey and white.

“Think we found Mister Whiskers,” he mutters, under his breath.

...

Pacifica leaves around lunchtime, thanking Mabel and Soos in her awkward, halting way. Honestly, it’s nice that she’s trying, but it’s painful to listen to sometimes, especially when Pacifica starts offering to buy things for people ‘so you don’t have to live such sad, miserable, deprived little lives anymore’. Dipper retreats to the attic, to write in his notebook and to read over what he’s already written and to think.

He finds Stan in the kitchen, shortly after Pacifica’s left and Dipper dares descend onto the main floor again. Dipper was really looking for Ford, to hand over his notebook and talk about his observations, but this is a golden opportunity. Stan’s carefully and painstakingly reapplying the fur to the skeleton along the spine with glue, obviously deep in concentration. He doesn’t look up when Dipper walks in, just says, “Bump this table and I’ll stuff you instead.”

Dipper holds up both hands, palms out, taking a respectful step back. The smell of the glue that Stan’s using is foul and inescapable, and Dipper’s pretty sure he can feel it killing his brain cells. “Where’d you get the cat carcass from?”

Stan grunts, and then doesn’t make another sound. Just when Dipper’s starting to think he’s not going to get an answer, Stan says, “Found it. Dumpster by the minigolf.” He paints another line of glue, carefully sticks the very centre of the tabby stripe directly onto the bones. Dipper’s pretty sure that’s not how you do taxidermy, but then again, he’s never tried. “Seemed a shame to let good bones go to waste.”

“Was it just bones?” Dipper asks, watching as the skeleton slowly disappears behind its fur coat. He hadn’t noticed before, while Pacifica was still here, but there are large, roughly oval chunks missing from its pelt.

Stan takes a step back from his handiwork, surveying it thoughtfully with one hand curled around his chin. “Yeah, yeah. Bones and the pelt. Figured some amateur’d tried to stuff it proper, realised they had no idea what they were doing, and ditched it.”

“Did it occur to you that that might be the cat Susan was missing?” Dipper asks, and Stan finally turns that thoughtful gaze on him instead of the taxidermy creature. Dipper can't - doesn't want to - examine the rush of relief that floods through him when he sees Stan's eyes, the same old brown as always, no slitted pupils or eerie yellow glow.

“D’you wanna be the one to tell her?”

“No, I just -” Dipper’s tongue seems to shrivel up. “Wouldn’t it be rough on her if she came up here one day and -”

“Kid, none of the locals visit this tourist trap,” Stan scoffs, and then pauses, thinking. “Except the mayor. Really loves his pumanthers. Anyway. What’s with the sudden interest in taxidermy?”

“It’s...interesting?” Dipper tries. Stan snorts.

“Interesting, my Aunt Fanny. You chasing a monster, kid?”

Dipper rubs his upper arm with one hand. “I think so.”

“Well, don’t use this guy as bait.” Stan turns back to the taxidermy creation, sucks in a short breath, and then leans down to paint glue across a rib.

...

The last tour runs at six-thirty. The Mystery Shack closes at seven.

Grenda and Candy show up at seven-oh-one, with a large bag full to bursting with brightly-coloured snack foods, various cosmetics, DVDs featuring a generically-nonthreatening-looking forty-year-old actor wearing an overstuffed pirate costume, and something that looks suspiciously like hair dye lurking at the bottom. Mabel greets them at the door with excited shrieks and giggles, and then they all vanish upstairs with a lot of conspiratorial whispers and more giggles. Dipper would put ten-to-one odds that the next time he goes to use the bathroom up there, the sink will be stained neon pink and blue.

The attic will probably be occupied for the near foreseeable future, so Dipper takes the book he’s reading (by a former ghostwriter for the Siblings Brothers and Francy Clue, technically aimed at adults, but then, Dipper is pretty mature for his age, if he does say so himself) and heads down to the living room, to see what his grunkles and Soos are up to. As it turns out, they're sprawled in front of the TV, Stan slouched on the couch Soos had added after he'd taken over the Shack, grousing about a dropped stitch in the bundle of half-finished knitting that lies in his lap. Ford sits next to him, nodding along and holding the ball of yarn that feeds into to the thing taking shape under Stan's knitting needles with one hand while he thumbs through a well-read book with the other.

"Wow, Grunkle Stan, I didn't know you knit," Dipper says, pausing by the armchair Soos himself has settled down in, facing the TV set.

"Yeah, your sister gave me some lessons over the internet while we were at sea," Stan grumbles, not looking up from the...garment?...he's picking at. "Not a lot to do between monster attacks."

"It's 'over video chat', Stanley, the video chat merely uses the internet as a method of transmission," Ford corrects him, turning a page in his book, and Stan huffs.

"That's what I said, isn't it? Over the internet."

"You can just say 'on Skope', Mr. Pines," Soos says, and Stan drops his knitting in his lap, throwing both hands up in the air. 

"Your sister showed me through the magic talking picture box, kid," he says to Dipper. 

Ford and Soos share a long-suffering look, which Stan ignores.

"What're she and those friends of hers up to, anyway?" he continues, and then shakes his head. "Wait, scratch that, I don't think I wanna know. Just tell me if they're gonna want the TV and whether they got any good snacks."

"I think they're definitely going to want the TV," Dipper says. "What're you guys watching, anyway?"

"Huh? Oh." Stan glances briefly at the set. "I have no idea, kid, I've been fighting with this row for half an hour."

"The news ends in five minutes and then 'Resignation Street' comes on," Soos supplies helpfully. "Louise's ex-husband came back from Guernsey and now he's trying to get the pub closed down, and Geoff's stepdaughter ran away from rehab for her online shopping addiction on the night of Ted and Twyla's wedding. High drama, dood."

"...Think I'll pass," Dipper says, holding up his book.

"Actually, Dipper, I'd like to speak with you," Ford says, and then looks up from his own book and beams. "Oh! Catherine Sharp! She ghost-wrote 'The Table-Turning Turntable', didn't she?"

"Yeah! It's probably my, uh, second-favourite of the Siblings Brothers books?" Dipper agrees, flopping down to sit beside his great-uncle on the couch.

"Really? My favourite was always -" Ford starts, and Dipper joins him as he says, " 'The Puzzle of the Purloined Puzzle-box'!"

"Geez, you two, don't get nerd all over the couch," Stan grumbles, but he's smiling.

"The twist ending just gets me every time!" Dipper says, too excited to let Stan's teasing slow him down. "I mean, I never would've guessed that -"

"Hey!" Stan interrupts, suddenly gruff. "No spoilers, I'm only halfway through it."

"Stanley, you're reading the Siblings Brothers mysteries?" Ford asks, turning to face his twin. 

"Yeah, and not a word outta you about it, Mister Smarty-pants," Stan snaps.

"I didn't mean to - I'm merely surprised. You always said you hated them." Ford raises an eyebrow. "And books in general."

Stan glares down at his knitting. "Yeah, well, I always said I didn't need glasses, neither, and look at me now."

"Hey, Mr. Pineses? They're signing off, Reggie'll be starting any minute now," Soos interrupts, drawing Dipper's attention back to the TV.

"Soos, how many times do I gotta tell you," Stan says, as the news anchor finishes his signoff. "I'm not your boss anymore, you can just call me Stan."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pines! It just feels...wrong."

"Was - was that Toby Determined announcing?" Dipper asks. "Wow, can't believe he stuck with that...Bodacious T thing."

Stan glances over. "Yeah, it's obnoxious and ugly, perfect for him." He squints at the screen as the first morose notes of the Resignation Street theme start to play. "Wonder what happened to that Shandra Jimenez, she sure was a lot easier on the eyes."

"Me too," Dipper mutters. "Grunkle Ford, are you really invested in this soap opera, or can we talk now?"

"Hm? Oh, yes!" Ford says, looking up from the screen. "Yes, I have some theories about the unusual behaviour you've noticed amongst the townsfolk -"

"You two are still on that?" Stan asks, and though he sounds impatient, sarcastic, Dipper thinks he hears a note of unease underneath it.

Ford ignores him. "But, first, I would like to know whether Cecil will be able to recapture Vicky's escaped alpaca."

"After the show, then," Dipper says, with a smile, and cracks open his book.

...

Cecil doesn't, as it turns out, recapture Vicky's escaped alpaca - instead, the alpaca turns up at Ted and Twyla's wedding, interrupting the vows to take a bite out of the bouquet. Mabel, Candy, and Grenda come stampeding downstairs shortly after that, shouting something that sounds vaguely like a sea shanty run through autotune. They enter into pitched negotiations with Stan and Soos over control of the TV set, and Ford motions towards the kitchen. He pushes himself up off the couch, leaving Stan's yarn in his abandoned seat, and Dipper follows.

The wall between the kitchen and the living room muffles the din somewhat, Grenda's impressive bass occasionally rumbling over the tinny music from the TV. The sun has just started to dip into the treeline, and the light pours low and thick across the table. With a little distance, in the reaching shadows and orangey light cast by early sunset, the cheerful noise of Dipper's family in the other room takes on an eerie quality. He catches himself thinking that, if he were directing a horror movie, right about now is when he'd start to fade out the voices from the living room and start to introduce some quiet, creepy strings to the score.

Ford’s face is solemn, his voice low as he lays the book he’d been thumbing through earlier out across the kitchen table. “Based on both the information you’ve provided and my own research and investigations, I have a theory about the cause of this unusual behaviour you’ve observed.” He presses a finger against one of the open pages of the book, right beside where Dipper notices Ford’s own handwriting filling the margin. “People disappearing, those who reappear coming back ravenous - for protein-rich foods, if your observations can be extrapolated - the appearance of carcasses with human bite-marks - the casual observer could be forgiven for mistaking this for an epidemic of zombification, but I believe it’s something more like - this!”

Dipper looks down at the page in front of him, his eyes widening as he reads. “You think there’s a wendigo in Gravity Falls?” He kind of wishes he had a pen to click. Or gnaw on. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense, they’re native to the area, aren’t they?”

“Yes, which would explain the warning you received from -”

“The Multibear!" Dipper slams both hands down on the table. “Okay, so if it’s a wendigo, how do we get rid of it?”

“Well,” Ford starts, bending over the book, and it’s then that Mabel’s voice rings from the doorway.

“And here you see two nerds in their natural habitat.” She grins at Dipper when he looks up, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. “You guys wanna watch Pirates of the Theme Park with us? This’s the eighth and a half one, where Captain Jim gets kidnapped by mermaids!” She leans in closer, swinging from one hand that she’s hooked around the doorframe. “Mermando told me his cousin was an extra! She’s in it for about five seconds in the drowning scene!”

“Really? They hire actual mermaids as extras in Hollywood?” Dipper asks, and Mabel laughs.

“No, silly, she’s a porpoise!”

“Oh. Of course. That makes perfect sense. Of course a mermaid’s cousin is a porpoise.” Dipper shakes his head. “Gotta say, that makes a whole lot more sense though. Especially when you consider how terrible most movie mermaids look. CGI is not kind.”

“Yeah, they’re waaaayyy hotter in real life,” Mabel says. “So, you two coming or not?”

Dipper looks over, meets Ford’s eyes.

“We won’t be able to do much more tonight,” Ford says. “Research, perhaps. We’ll have to determine who the wendigo is, and whether they’ve passed the curse along to anyone else, and I need to refresh my memory on how to detect and properly destroy them. Until we know who we’re looking for, we can’t act.”

“I’m gonna pretend I understood any of that,” Mabel says, swinging back and forth from the doorframe. 

“Grunkle Ford’s pretty sure that there’s a wendigo on the loose somewhere in town and that’s why we keep noticing weird - weirder than usual things going on,” Dipper says. “Do you have any idea who it might be? Seen anybody, I don’t know, handing out self-help books called ‘How To Taste Delicious’?”

Mabel laughs, and shakes her head. “You could start with Lazy Susan, her secret recipes are sure good at fattening people up,” she suggests. Dipper glances in Fords direction, shrugs.

“It’s as good a starting point as any.” Ford slams the book on the table closed, scooping it up. “I’m going to go retrieve my old research notes, I’m certain I have information about the established cryptids and monsters of the area from when I was writing my grant proposal.”

“I’ll look online,” Dipper starts, and Ford shakes his head, smiling. 

“Unless Stanley or Soos have taken a notion to clean out the attic lately, I know exactly where my old notes are. And I think it might be a good idea to bring them down to review - in the living room, while we watch Captain Jim get kidnapped by mermaids.”

Mabel beams like a small sun. “Awesome!” 

...

Wendy hasn’t arrived for work by the time Dipper’s ready to leave in the morning. 

He tries not to dwell on it, but his eye keeps drifting back to the empty space behind the register the longer he stands in the doorway of the gift shop waiting for his great uncle, like it’s a black hole that’s swallowed Wendy up and is now trying to suck Dipper in too. It’s a relief when Ford finally pushes aside the vending machine, a big black case slung across his back by a strap that crosses his chest. He doesn’t say what’s in it, and Dipper doesn’t ask.

“I have a theory,” Ford says, as he crosses the gift shop. “About where the wendigo is hiding during daylight hours. But it will require one of us to go into the den of the creature itself to prove. I - I’m not going to bring you with me, this time.” Something like fear flickers across his face, so fast that it’s gone before Dipper can really be sure he’s even seen it in the first place. It’s replaced by a huge, cheerful, reassuring smile, one that even to Dipper looks unconvincing. “So I’m going to drop you off in town. If I’m not back to pick you up by sunset, assume the worst and avenge my death.”

“That’s...not exactly reassuring,” Dipper says, as Ford strides to the door and yanks it open, the chimes hanging over the door jingling merrily. Ford stops and looks over his shoulder, with another broad, sunny grin.

“Oh! And if I come back after sunset, I might be one of them. You might be able to tell by sprinkling me with wolfsbane and holy water, but that’s mostly for werewolves.” He pauses, looking thoughtful. “Though if you’re that close and I am one of them, I will almost certainly try to eat you, which should remove all doubt.”

“Again, not super reassuring,” Dipper says, as he follows his great-uncle out the door.

He glances back one last time at the cash register, as though Wendy will have magically appeared there in the five seconds since he last looked, but the blonde wood of the Shack’s walls is the only thing that looks back.

...

They only make it away with the Stanleymobile because Soos shows up with a tour group just as Stan's starting to tear into Ford for trying to take his baby without asking. Dipper slips into the passenger seat and shuts the door as Stan's trying to argue that there's no way Soos can make him work register while Wendy’s away, he doesn’t even work here, also he is the one, the only, the original Mr. Mystery, he built this place from nothing, Soos -

Ford drops Dipper off at the diner, with another admonition to be careful, to watch his back. The sky is a perfect, crisp blue, the sunlight clear as crystal, but there’s a glacial bite on the breeze that makes Dipper shiver as he steps out of the musty, stuffy warmth of the car.

Lazy Susan looks up and smiles as Dipper steps through the door into the comforting smell of pancakes and bacon and maple syrup, setting the chimes jangling a cheerful discord. She’s not the only one. Half the diner’s clientele all look up with her, both familiar and unfamiliar faces smiling at Dipper with oddly placid expressions. He feels uncomfortably like he just stepped into a spotlight.

Thankfully, everyone but Susan turns back to their food and their quiet conversations as soon as the door slams behind Dipper. Susan waves, beaming, as Dipper cautiously crosses the diner to the counter, watching warily around him in case any of the unusually-interested diner folk spring out at him. There’s something different about Lazy Susan, about her smile, but Dipper can’t quite put his finger on what.

“Well, hey there! What can I getcha?” Susan glances back over her shoulder at the kitchen, smile dimming a little as she turns back to Dipper. “ ‘Fraid we’re running short on sausage and bacon, but I can do you a stack of pancakes - or maybe my special secret ingredient omelette?”

“Is the secret ingredient coffee?” Dipper asks, and Susan belly-laughs, before turning a mock glare in his direction. 

“Now, who’s the snitch who told you?”

Dipper tries to laugh, but it comes out nervous and croaky. A couple of the people who’d looked up when he’d walked in are echoing Susan’s glare, and the back of his neck is prickling. “Lucky guess?”

Susan’s smile comes back bright as ever. The other eyes on Dipper don’t turn away, though, and the weird prickling on the back of his neck doesn’t go away. “Well, aren’t you Mister Smartypants! So! You want one?”

“Um, I’m good, thanks,” Dipper says. “Did - did you ever find out what happened to your missing cat?”

“You know, it’s the funniest thing,” Susan says, thoughtfully. “Mister Whiskers never did come back, and now all my other fur babies are missing.”

“I’m...really sorry to hear that,” Dipper says. “You seemed really upset about losing Mister Whiskers, this must be a huge deal.”

Susan shrugs. “What’s that thing they say about letting go of things you love, again?”

“I think they usually say ‘don’t’,” Dipper says. “You haven’t noticed anything...weird about anybody who’s come by the diner lately, have you?”

“This is Gravity Falls, hon,” Susan says, almost pityingly, then claps both hands together. “Are you making another internet television video?”

“Not...this time,” Dipper answers. He’s pretty sure it’s not just his imagination that more heads have turned in his direction, more pairs of unusually piercing eyes fixed on his face. “You’re sure you haven’t - you said you were running low on bacon. Who’s been eating all of it?”

“Everybody!” Susan says, delightedly, like it should be obvious. There’s something a little too earnest about her smile, a little impatient, strained at the edges. Dipper can’t remember if her visible eye was always that green. “Don’t you know, everybody wakes up hungry!”

Dipper takes a half-step back, bumps up against one of the stools along the counter. “Wakes up from what?”

“From sleeping, silly!” Susan laughs. She hasn’t moved, and, as far as Dipper can tell, neither has anyone else, but he still has the uneasy feeling that they’re closing in around him. “It’s actually very refreshing, you should give it a try!”

“Thanks, but, uh, I’m good,” Dipper says, trying to casually ease his way around the stool to back away across the diner. He’s not sure what, exactly, Susan’s referring to, but somehow he gets the feeling it’s not going to bed before ten.

He turns to go out the door and slams straight into a wall of pure muscle. Dipper looks up, and farther up, to the pair of sharp green eyes staring down at him over a bush of red beard topping a mountain of flannel. Dipper’s heart stutters in his chest for the skin of a second, before Manly Dan Corduroy gives a rumbly chuckle unlike anything Dipper’s ever heard from him before and steps out of the way, holding the diner door open for Dipper as he does.

“Come back soon, hon,” Susan calls, and, when Dipper turns, lifts her drooping eyelid with two fingers and lets it drop again. “Wink!”

Dipper’s halfway across the parking lot before he slows down, before he really even registers that he’s running full-tilt across the cracked asphalt.

He could swear that, when he’d looked back, something under the skin of Susan’s face had shifted.

...

Going back through town is strange, now.

Dipper feels jittery and jumpy, like he’s had too much caffeine or too little sleep or a combination of both. The light is bright and stark through the scraps of cloud that hang around the horizon like they’ve snagged on the tops of the trees, and shadows hug the sides and corners of buildings, dark and sharp, like they’re waiting to pounce. The afternoon heat is starting to build, but a shiver works its way down his back anyway. He keeps looking back over his shoulder, feeling eyes fixed on him. He never actually catches anyone looking, but - but.

Dipper’s looking back, trying to work out if the man he can see in the window of the mattress store is really watching him. He’s not looking where he’s going.

The collision takes him by surprise, knocking him back off his feet. He hits the sidewalk hard, hissing as his elbow scrapes against the sidewalk, the rough grit stinging as it tears his skin.

“Hey, watch it, kid,” a familiar voice snaps, and Dipper looks up to see Robbie frowning down at him. Beside him, Tambry turns to glance down at Dipper as well. Her green eyes are almost luminous under the shadow of her bangs.

“Oh hey, you’re bleeding,” Tambry says, her gaze locking onto Dipper’s elbow. 

Robbie’s eyes follow, like mirror images of Tambry’s, and linger hungrily on the trickle of blood working its way down Dipper’s arm, flashing an eerie green in his sallow face. 

Dipper claps a hand over the scrape, backing away as he scrambles to his feet. “It’s fine, it’s just a scrape!”

Tambry looks questioningly at Dipper, but when he takes another step back, she shrugs and flops an arm loosely across to hit her boyfriend in the chest with the back of her hand. “Well, at least apologise, loser.”

Robbie rolls his eyes, but he says, “Sorry I ran into you or whatever.” They step around Dipper, starting to walk away, but Robbie looks back over his shoulder, pointing one finger straight at Dipper’s nose. “But seriously, watch where you’re going, you little -”

“Robbie.” Tambry hooks a hand into Robbie’s hoodie strings and hauls him around to walk beside her. A moment later, her hand drops to interlace her fingers with his.

Dipper keeps backing away from them, before he realises he’s one hundred percent more likely to bump into someone else that way. He spins, just in time to see the Stanleymobile pull up to the curb alongside him. Dipper hurries over, heaving a sigh of relief as he throws open the passenger-side door. “Great-uncle Ford?”

Ford’s face is grim, and he waves Dipper into the car with a motion that’s almost frantic. “Dipper, get inside. Quickly!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Dipper says, sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him. Ford doesn’t wait for him to finish buckling his seatbelt, but peels away from the curb with a squeal of tires, his mouth set in a grim line and his eyes fixed on the road. “Whoa, have you been taking driving lessons from Grunkle Stan?” 

Ford, if he even hears Dipper, ignores the question. “I need to get back to my lab as soon as possible. It appears that I have...gravely misinterpreted the nature of the threat.”

“I was sort of starting to think our wendigo theory might be a little off-base,” Dipper agrees, finally clicking his seatbelt into place as they take a corner on what Dipper’s pretty sure are only two wheels. “What’s the rush?”

Ford turns to look at Dipper for the first time since Dipper got into the car, staring intently at Dipper’s eyes. He turns back to the road, apparently satisfied, just in time to swerve around a deer that darts across the road. 

“Our explorations in the alien spaceship last summer appear to have disturbed more than just the security drones,” he says, at last. “I can’t be certain just what we’re dealing with until I run further tests, but - I believe I have the source contained in the trunk of this car.”

“Seriously? Oh man, Grunkle Stan’s really gonna kill us,” Dipper says. 

“Don’t worry, I’m sure the stains will come out of the upholstery - and even if they don’t, I’m not certain they’ll make any noticeable difference to the relative cleanliness of that trunk,” Ford says, leaning forward over the steering wheel to peer out the windshield at the trees lining the road. Dipper looks out the passenger window himself, thinks he sees figures flicker past between the trees as they drive past. 

“What’re you planning to do with it when you get it back to the Shack?” he asks, watching as the trees flash by.

“With any luck, I should be able to determine just what the creature has done to the residents of Gravity Falls who’ve been affected,” Ford says. Dipper glances over, notices the needle on the speedometer edging up towards eighty as they fly around one of the road’s many curves. “And with that information, I hope to be able to develop a cure.”

“A cure? What do you think -”

“I don’t know.” The words seem to drag their way out of Ford like they’re anchored somewhere in his lungs. “But I intend to find out.”

...

Ford goes straight to the basement as soon as they arrive, carrying something that looks like a cross between a proton pack and a vacuum cleaner under one arm and striding like a man on a mission. Stan, slouched on the stool behind the register, watches the vending machine door slam behind Ford before turning to Dipper. “No luck with that...wendigo problem you two were nerding out about last night, huh?”

“It wasn’t an wendigo, it was aliens,” Dipper says, unable to look away from the flickering fluorescent glow that illuminates the brightly-coloured foil wrappings of the vending machine’s contents. 

“Ah,” Stan grunts, sounding uncomfortable. “Well, whatever it is, hope he fixes it fast. This place needs its real cashier back.” He grumbles, in an undertone he almost definitely doesn’t think Dipper can hear, “Bein’ on till again’s bringing back memories, sure, but I’m not so sure I want ’em.”

Dipper walks over to the vending machine, feeling a little like he’s walking up to the guillotine, and punches in the code to open the hidden door. “I’m gonna go see if I can help Great-uncle Ford,” he starts, and then pauses when the door doesn’t open. “Um, did anybody change the code on this thing?”

“Not that I know of, kid,” Grunkle Stan says. 

Dipper gives the vending machine door a tug, but it stays stubbornly stuck in place, like it’s - “Grunkle Stan, does this door lock from the inside?”

“If it does, only my nerd brother’d know about it,” Stan says, and then meets Dipper’s eyes. “Look, kid. Dipper. It ain’t anything against you.”

“Isn’t - Grunkle Stan, he just locked me out of my own investigation!”

Stan shifts uncomfortably on the small stool, scratching at his back with one arm. “Look, I might still not remember much about - about the end of last summer, but I know it got pretty bad for a while there.” He breaks eye contact, clasping both hands in front of him and looking down at them. “I know I never wanna see you kids in a situation like that ever again, and I don’t even remember the half of it.”

“I can handle myself!” Dipper argues. “I did handle myself -”

“I know that,” Stan says. “Hell, I’d be surprised if anyone in this town didn’t know that. Just -” His speech trails off into frustrated silence, before he finally says, “Just don’t go borrowin’ trouble.”

Dipper glares up at the glare of the afternoon sun across the glass face of the vending machine.

He still tries the code one more time before he gives up and heads for the attic, just in case.

...

Ford doesn’t come up for dinner.

He doesn’t come up for Resignation Street, either. When Soos finally suggests that maybe Dipper and Mabel should think about pyjamas, dawgs, and Stan shoos them both upstairs to brush their teeth, Ford still hasn’t emerged from the basement.

Dipper can’t sleep that night.

He lies wide awake, his eyes open, staring at the beams that stretch over his head on the way to the peak of the roof, listening to the sough of the wind through the branches and smelling the faint scent of pine and clear water on the cool night air that seeps through the open window. Sometimes, if he’s very still, he thinks he can hear the occasional faint hint of a crash or thump, but it’s impossible to tell from the attic whether the sound is coming from the basement or somewhere outside.

No matter how deep and slow he breathes or how many prime numbers he counts, sleep still seems to hover just out of Dipper’s grasp. When he does manage to snatch handfuls of oblivion, they’re full of green eyes peering at him from the dark line of trees surrounding the Shack, and he always wakes startled and disoriented and more tired than before. 

The room sinks slowly from blue dark into the silvery shadows of midnight, and then into the velvet-soft blackness of early morning.

Wendy comes in to work that morning, after pale lavender dawn has spilled across the sky and the whole family (minus Ford) have eaten their way through a foot-tall stack of Stancakes and Mabel has asked Dipper ten times or more whether he’s all right. She shows up exactly on time, for once, her thick red hair pulled back in a fat braid and a broad, genuine smile on her face.

“Hey, dude,” she says to Dipper, who’s just settling down by the register with his crossword puzzle and definitely not staring expectantly at the vending machine. “What’s up? Soos in yet?”

“He’s just suiting up, he should be right -” Dipper looks up from his crossword puzzle (which he was definitely looking at, and not the vending machine, by the way), and his words shrivel and die in his throat.

Wendy looks back at him with acid green eyes, her smile slowly fading into confusion. “Dipper? You planning to, I dunno, finish that sentence?”

“You,” Dipper croaks. He swallows, hard. It drags down his throat, suddenly dry, like sandpaper. “You’re - you’re one of them.”

Wendy blinks. And then she smiles.

“Yeesh, dude, chill out,” she says, walking over to drop her bag on the counter beside the register and vaulting over it herself. “You sound like you’re in some kinda cheesy B-rated alien invasion movie.”

“Because I kind of am!” Dipper protests. Wendy leans down, rummaging under the counter, and straightens up with her name badge in one hand, carefully pinning it to the front of her flannel shirt. She lets out a long sigh, leaning her chin in one hand as she stares at Dipper. 

“Dipper, seriously, stop freaking out. The hive’s not gonna hurt you.” Wendy glances upwards, towards the ceiling. “Where’s Mabel, anyway? I’ll show you guys -”

“You’re not touching my sister,” Dipper blurts, before he can think that it might be a bad idea to challenge Wendy, before he can think at all. It just feels like a volcano erupted in his chest at the same time as someone dumped a bucket of ice water over him, and he doesn’t know what to do with the resulting reaction. He reaches out and grabs the broom that Soos keeps asking Wendy to put away instead of just leaning behind the register, nearly smacking Wendy in the head as he pulls it free. “Get out of my house.”

Wendy’s brow furrows in apparent exasperation. “Okay. Well, in case you’re having, like, a Stan moment, I do still work here.”

“I don’t care,” Dipper says. His heart is jackhammering in his chest, and everything feels strangely light and far too heavy all at the same time. 

“And Soos is a lot nicer than Stan ever was, but I don’t think even he’d be thrilled if I just don’t show up for work two days in a row,” Wendy says, still in that calm, totally reasonable tone of voice, like Dipper’s the one who’s acting weird here. 

“Just get out,” Dipper demands, brandishing the broom. The corners of his eyes feel threateningly hot, and he squeezes the broom handle in both hands until he’s pretty sure he’s in danger of giving himself splinters. “Get away from my family.”

Wendy just looks at him, that poisonous green stare blank and impassive.

“Fine,” she says, at last, just when Dipper’s starting to think that he’s actually going to have to fight her, trying to psych himself up for the fact that he’s almost certainly going to lose. “Okay, man. If it’s such a big deal to you then I’ll go.” She pushes herself to her feet, points a finger in Dipper’s direction. “But you’re covering my shift.”

“Fine,” Dipper agrees. Relief crashes over him, threatens to sweep him away. “Just - go.”

Wendy holds up both hands, palms out, like Dipper’s brandishing a gun instead of a broom. She gathers her bag back up, and turns and walks out the door.

Dipper runs over and slams the gift shop door behind her, shooting the deadbolt with shaking hands. He sags against it as soon as it’s locked, and rests there for a moment, just trying to catch his breath.

...

He tries the vending machine again.

It still won’t open.

...

Dipper runs into Stan before he finds Soos, still suiting up for the first of the morning’s tours. He’s pretty sure he just confused Stan with his incoherent babble, but he doesn’t have time to go back.

“We can’t open the Shack today,” Dipper yells, skidding around the corner into Soos’ room. Soos turns away from the mirror he’s using to straighten his bow tie, and Dipper can’t put into words the rush of relief that floods him at the sight of Soos’ familiar, warm brown eyes. “We can’t let anybody in - we have to lock down the Shack, it’s the only way.”

“What’s going on, dawg?” Soos asks, and Dipper babbles again, spilling out the story of the strange green eyes and the weird ways people have been acting and Ford and the alien and Wendy and -

“Okay, dood, I believe you,” Soos says, and his expression is so thankfully serious that Dipper believes he means it. “You should go tell Mabel about this, I think she was gonna go to the pool with her friends today -”

Dipper’s off before Soos finishes speaking.

He’s running out of steam, just a little, by the time he makes it up to the top of the attic stairs. The bedroom door is closed, and Dipper throws it open, ignoring the way it bangs against the far wall. “Mabel! We have to -”

He stops.

Mabel’s sprawled out across her bed, face-down. It’d almost look like she was just sleeping in, if it weren’t for the fact that Waddles isn’t curled up next to her, and the fact that she’s already dressed in a skirt and purple sweater, and the fact that she’d been at breakfast with the rest of them, and the fact that the one of her feet that’s not dangling off the side of the bed still has a shoe on it, and the fact that her face is in her pillow and Dipper can’t tell if her chest is moving.

He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t have enough air left in his lungs to scream.

“Dipper,” Ford says, sounding surprised, straightening up from where he was bent down removing Mabel’s other shoe. He smiles fondly down at her, reaching down to brush a lock of her long brown hair away from her face, and Dipper sees with a firework-burst of relief that her hair flutters in front of her open mouth in regular time with each breath.

Dipper drags in one huge breath of his own, lets it out, takes another. 

He wants to tell Ford all about Wendy, about how far the - whatever this alien creature’s doing - has spread, how much danger they’re all in, wants to ask about how Ford’s research has been going and what he’s learned and whether there’s any hope of saving Wendy and the rest of the town and themselves. But something holds him back.

“What are you doing?” he asks, instead. 

“If you’re worried about your sister, don’t be. She’s perfectly fine,” Ford says, still not turning to face Dipper. “This exhaustion is completely natural and expected in the early stages.”

Dipper feels like his feet are growing slowly into the floor. It takes a gargantuan effort to take one slow, shuffling step backwards. “Early - what did you do to Mabel?”

“Exactly what I said I meant to, my boy,” Ford says, like he’s talking about a particularly interesting extradimensional phenomenon he thinks would interest Dipper or about how he thinks he’s finally made all the necessary modifications to the television set to keep it from dropping the signal every single time it snows. 

Dipper manages another shuffled half-step backwards, and then can’t move any more. He can’t look away from Mabel, peacefully passed out across her bed, from her shoe discarded on the floor from when Ford had stood up. For that split second when Dipper had walked in, before he’d noticed everything that was wrong with the picture, it had almost looked like their great-uncle was tucking her in.

Ford finally looks up at Dipper, his smile broad and proud and innocent, his eyes blazing unnatural green. “I cured her,” he says, matter-of-fact, and then, “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit. It might itch a little, though.”

Finally, finally, Dipper’s feet seem to dislodge from the floor. He turns to run, but a six-fingered hand wraps around his upper arm, pulling him up short. Dipper spins, lashing out with his free hand, but even though the punch connects with Ford’s chest, it barely seems to faze him. Ford just looks pleased and proud and a little wistful. “Did Stanley teach you how to throw a punch?” he asks, grabbing Dipper’s other wrist. His grip is like steel. “Looks like his style.”

“Let - let go of me!” Dipper yells, kicking frantically out. 

It doesn’t make any difference. A cloud of something silvery-green drifts down to settle around his head, something that stings the insides of his nostrils and burns the back of his throat when he takes a sharp breath in. Dipper coughs, trying to hold his breath, but the stinging only spreads. 

His limbs are all starting to turn to water. From what seems like an impossible distance, he thinks he hears Ford say, kindly, “Don’t worry. Everything will look better when you wake up.”

Then everything goes black.