#of course mabel would cosplay!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr was the first site to host the blog for President Barack Obama in 2011.

#of course mabel would cosplay!!

alphabetboyluvr · 9 months

Note

danbi dog walking w/ tae sort of meet cute-type date vibes

🪩 WORDCOUNT | 700 (exactly!) 🪩 NOTE FROM HOLLY | so i kinda think they're impossible to have a meet-cute, just because danbi was sooooo anti-tae at the start. like she always knew he was interested and used to try soooo hard to pretend that she wasnt!!! plus if anyone is a man hater (complimentary <3) it's danbi!! I can't remember when, but i know it's mentioned earlier on in the story that tae had been at memorial park with dan so.... here u go!

🪩 BD DRABBLES MASTERPOST 🪩

“Again?” Danbi sighs as she notices the man walking towards her up through the path of the Memorial Park.

She’d put her hands on her hips if either of them were free - but she’s currently got three dogs to each hand. The leads wrap around so tightly it’s a miracle her fingers haven’t fallen off yet.

Still, her facial expression conveys everything her body can’t - and yet Kim Taehyung has the audacity to stand there fucking smiling.

“Fancy seeing you here!” He beams, turning on his heel to stop himself from walking on by. Doesn't miss a beat. Heads in the same direction as Danbi, now.

“Y’know, some people would consider this stalking,” she tells him with nothing but disdain.

“See, I would agree,” Taehyung answers with contemplative arrogance. “But it’s funny - DB seems to reckon you’ve changed your route, recently?”

“Oh has she, now?” Danbi says, resisting the urge to curse you out. Loves you to death, but knows exactly what you’re doing. Begins to think that your joke about dressing up as cupid for Halloween isn’t really a joke.

“Mhmm,” Taehyung nods, hands in pockets. A little shy, but trying desperately hard not to be. “You used to do your walks down by the river, apparently.”

Danbi’s jaw is tense. Unwavering. “Sometimes a change of scenery is good. Gives the pups more mental stimulation. Different smells.”

“There are so many parks in the city,” he muses.

“Well I’ll pick a different one, once I’ve decided they’ve had enough of this one.”

“Maybe you should try the city forest,” Taehyung suggests. “The one by the last stop on line two. I go there pretty often, too.”

The narrowing of Danbi’s eyes only serves to make Taehyung smile. He’s learning pretty quickly which buttons of Danbi’s to press - and given how easy it is to wind her up, he doesn’t have to try particularly hard.

It’s what he likes about her, though. She’s fiery. Ignites a little something inside him.

“My route choices have nothing to do with you.”

“No?” He challenges. “So why’d it change after you found out my studio overlooks Memorial Park?”

“Coincidence.”

“Y’know,” Taehyung smirks. “Some people would consider it stalking.”

If there’s one thing Danbi hates, it’s when men make her smile - and Taehyung is getting dangerously close to that. She has to nip this in the bud, or otherwise her mild-infatuation with him will inevitably grow, and she cannot let that happen.

She’s dated musicians. Dated pretty boys. Ones with egos. Knows that artists are even worse.

And the ones who look like Kim Taehyung? Nothing but trouble. She knows that as soon as her guard is down, some girl from his art school will end up back in his DM’s and then she’ll have to fight for his attention, which she refuses to do. Dreads to think of the notches in his bedpost. Doesn’t wanna have to look at the art he’s made from other muses.

Again, she’s dated men who are menaces before. Had songs written for other girls cosplayed as serenades for her (fuck you, Sanghyuk). Refuses to let it happen again.

Better to just fight with him. Easier that way.

She’s incapable of doing anything by half measures though, so hatred seems like the best course of action.

“With all due respect, Taehyung, I’m working,” she shrugs, picking up her pace.

“Let me help.”

“No.”

“I'm good with animals.”

“You’re not insured.”

“I know how to walk a dog”

“No.”

“Let me-”

“Fine! Take Mabel,” Danbi finally relents, adjusting the leashes to hold one out from him. On the end is a Pomeranian, not too dissimilar from Taehyung’s own dog - the same dog Taehyung keeps trying to convince Danbi to walk, just so he has an excuse to see her. “She bites.”

“It’s fine,” Taehyung says, taking the leash in his palm and wrapping it over slightly for a little extra security. Starts walking. Is cheeky, as he says, “I’m used to bitches who bite.”

“You did not just call me a bitch,” Danbi gasps, genuinely affronted. It’s the first time throughout this entire interaction that Taehyung thinks he’s getting genuine emotion from her. Knows the rest of it is bull.

“Well, are you planning on biting me?” He flirts. Wouldn’t be opposed. In fact, he’d quite like it.

“Shut up,” she whines with a deadly roll of her eyes. “Just walk the damn dog."

26 notes · View notes

fibula-rasa · 5 months

Text

Seen in ’23: Annual Roundup

Top new-to-me films of ‘23

(in the order I saw them, not preference)

The Blizzard / Gunnar Hedes saga (1923) [imdb | letterboxd]

The Rafter’s Bride / Koskenlaskijan morsian (1923) [imdb | letterboxd]

Funeral Parade of Roses / 薔薇の葬列 (1969) [letterboxd | imdb]

Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press / Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (1984) [letterboxd | imdb]

Drylongso (1998) [letterboxd | imdb]

The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) [letterboxd | imdb]

The Burning Crucible / Le Brasier ardent (1923) [letterboxd | imdb]

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) [letterboxd | imdb]

Merry-Go-Round (1923) [letterboxd | imdb]

Dream Demon (1988) [letterboxd | imdb]

Mazel Tov / Ost und West (1923) [letterboxd | imdb]

The Signal Tower (1924) [letterboxd | imdb]

The Second Track / Das zweite Gleis (1962) [letterboxd | imdb]

Restless Blood / Levoton Veri (1946) [letterboxd | imdb]

The Man Without Desire (1923) [letterboxd | imdb]

Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Adolescence of Utena / 少女革命ウテナアドゥレセンス黙示録 (1999) [letterboxd | imdb]

---

Honorable mention:

Ritratto di donna velata (1972) [letterboxd | imdb] (because it’s technically a mini-series)

Spirits of the Dead / Histoires extraordinaires (1968) [letterboxd | imdb] (because it would make the year-end list for “Toby Dammit” alone TBH)

So, according to letterboxd, only 33% of the films I watched in 2023 were rewatches. In an unexpected bit of consistency, that’s also my proportion of rewatches for ‘22 and ‘21. Sometimes crunching the numbers teaches you potentially meaningless things about yourself.

On my letterboxd, I put together a list of my top new-to-me films of ’23, in case you want an easier way to check if there’s anything you might want to add to your own watchlists!

READ ON BELOW THE JUMP!

As I continued my tradition of watching films as they turn 100, the 1920s was my most-watched decade as it was in 2022.

I was startled looking at the stats that the 1930s were so underrepresented! To ward that off in 2024, I think I’ll binge some pre-codes. Maybe we should all watch pre-codes in March 2024 to dishonor Will Hays on his birthday?

My top individual years were:

1923

1987

1986

1920

1911

1971 (unexpected!)

1988

---

In another bit of unexpected consistency, I seem to have watched roughly 60% American-made films every year for the last 3 years?

Regardless, I think my MVP for this year was Finland. Teuvo Tulio is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors and the silent films from Finland that I watched this year were highlights too!

---

My most watched actors for 2023 were:

Alice Howell

James Finlayson

Stan Laurel

Snub Pollard

Katherine Grant

Marie Mosquini

Christopher Lee

Jackie Cooper

Lois Weber

Mabel Normand

Noah Young

Oliver Hardy

Richard Smith

Can you tell that I watched a ton of silent comedy in 2023? Of course Marie and Snub are making a return appearance here from last year, so I suppose I watched plenty of comedy shorts in ‘22 as well.

If you were only to count the feature films that I watched, Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Douglas Fairbanks, Vincent Price, and William Haines would top the list!

---

My most watched directors were:

Alice Guy

Dave Fleischer

George Jeske

Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass

Charley Chase

John G. Blystone

Lois Weber

Richard Smith

Maya Deren

Phillips Smalley

Another affirmation that I watched a whole lot of silent shorts, but this time because of the fantastic Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers set. I highly recommend picking up a copy (or checking it out of your local library). Not only is the set well curated, but there are so many great extras to put the films in context.

For Christmas ‘23, I got the Cinema’s First Nasty Women set and I’m very excited to marathon those and be influenced into a year of behaving badly.

Maya Deren makes the list because I re-watched her films in advance of my cosplay/profile of her. If you haven’t dug into Deren’s short but fascinating filmography yet, I highly recommend it!

#roundup #year end roundup #film recommendation #movie recommendations #film blog #film #classic film #classic movies #silent film #silent movies #silent cinema #cinema #filmblr #movies #world cinema #animation

6 notes · View notes

palettepainter · 9 months

Note

What are Caleb and Lottie’s favorite shows? You think they’d dress up as a pair of characters from the same show (ex: Caleb and Lottie dressing as Dipper and Mabel from Gravity Falls)?

Your ask is literally so close to the idea I had for the drawing of these two omgggg I wanna doodle this idea so bad-

Yes 100% they do this: but they'd do the thing where Caleb cosplays as the girl character (Mabel) and Lottie dresses up at the boy (Dipper). Lottie would of course sometimes like to dress up as girly things/girl character from a show she likes, but she loves dress up in general so she's not fussed either way

Halloween would probably be her favourite holiday

Here are some other duos I think these two would dress up as

-A flower and a bee

-Rarity and Fluttershy (their fav ponies respeticfully)

-Dog and cat

-Papyrus and Sans

-Batman and Robin

#Muppets #The Muppets #Muppet OC #Caleb #Lottie #Caleb Pepper #Lottie Pepper

9 notes · View notes

imnotoverlyobsessive · 3 years

Text

Mabel’s All-in-One Guide to Being a Shooting Star: How to Avoid Being Caught and Other Tips You Should Know

Chapter Three: Not Dipper

A big ol thank you to @edward-or-ford and @pacific-ship!

He’s so tall and handsome as hell; he’s so bad but he does it so well. I can see the end as it begins.- Taylor Swift, Wildest Dreams

Warmth.

Warmth and safety.

Those were the first things Mabel noticed when she woke up for those few brief seconds, the first things she could recall feeling. She was too tired to open her eyes, and her head was freaking killing her, but there was warmth seeping into her skin like melted butter into bread, and something smelled remarkably good.

It wasn’t a familiar smell, not by any means, but she found she liked it quite a lot. She turned her face towards the warm, smooth fabric the scent was coming from, nuzzling it happily with a small smile.

It didn’t help her killer headache, of course, but her bed or whatever it was, it smelled goooooood, and she was all for it.

She felt as if nothing could touch her, there in that little bubble of delicious-smelling warmth, and she wondered idly if Dipper was around, because she only ever felt so happy and safe when she was with him.

When had she seen him last, again? Mabel couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything, really.

Oh well. Whatever. She was warm. She was safe. She was comfortable. She was happy. She smiled again, just a little bit, as her thoughts faded when she lost consciousness again.

She would not be so content when she woke the second time.

———————————————————————

There was a throbbing in her skull. An intense kind, particularly in her temples and behind her eyes. It hurt worse when she opened her eyes, and it took them several rapid blinks to adjust to lights that were actually quite dim, but with her concussion headache, they seemed ridiculously bright against the blue ceiling.

“Yeesh,” she muttered, sitting up on the… was that a chaise? Yup, okay, that was definitely a chaise. She’d never even seen one in person; those things were for fancy people. Mabel had always been many things, but fancy most certainly wasn’t one of them.

Anyway, she was sitting up on the super-duper fancy chaise, her hands supporting her. “My head, what in the…” Dammit, her wrists and arms hurt, too, those were, ugh, were those rope marks? They sure looked like rope marks.

There was a sound nearby when she spoke loud enough to be heard, but Mabel’s head was throbbing so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t hear much of anything. She massaged the skin on her wrists, trying to get the soreness to dissipate. It didn’t.

And then the whole thing came rushing back.

Shit. Was she married to the gnomes now? Was that gonna be her life? No, no, it was fine, gnome marriage wasn’t legally binding, she didn’t think, and even if it was, it wasn’t legal for somebody to marry a whole bunch of people at once, and it definitely wasn’t legal for that somebody to be an unwilling participant. Therefore, any marriage contracts they may or may not have drawn up were null and void, legally speaking. Which meant she needed to escape. Which meant she needed to figure out where she was.

Wait, what about the blood-gnome? What was up with that? Or, shit, the floating glow-dude! What the heckity hecking heckfire was going on with that shiz?

Suddenly, out of nowhere (or perhaps not truly nowhere; she just hadn’t examined where she was just yet, as she hadn’t looked up), a pair of arms wrapped around her, and her head was squished against a very masculine, yummy-smelling (the same smell as before, actually! What a lovely coincidence!) chest. Mr. Hugglebus reached up and threaded his fingers through Mabel’s hair, holding her head against him.

“Mabel,” a voice whispered, like its owner couldn’t believe he was getting to say her name. It was familiar, but also very much not, and Mabel was, like, off-the-charts levels of confuzzled. “Mabel,” the voice said again. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

It was hard to think with the pounding in her ears, but she did her best to ignore it.

She had bigger things to deal with than a headache, no matter how nasty it was.

“Wh- whoa there, friend,” Mabel said shakily, putting her hand on his chest and pushing away from him lightly. Mr. Hugglebus pulled back enough for Mabel to get a proper look at him, and…

Wait.

What?

“Dipper?” she gasped. He said nothing. “What is up with your hair, man?” she laughed. “Or- or your getup, like! What? You goin’ to a fancy party or something? No, no, wait!” she was giggling, and it hurt her head, but it was just so goddamn good to see him she didn’t care. “Okay okay, I know! You’re doing, like, a knock-off impersonation of Gideon, right?” He furrowed his brow, annoyance filling his ice blue eyes.

But… wait. Ice blue eyes? Dipper has brown eyes. They were identical to hers. She knew this. She’d stared into those stupid-beautiful eyes of his a bazillion and one times. She knew her bro bro’s eyes, aight? She knew those suckers. This guy, though. This guy was different. Like. Different different.

“Are you… are you Dipper? ‘Cause like. The Dipster I know won’t even wear color contacts for cosplay purposes, and those eyes ain’t blue naturally, so…”

It was several moments before he finally spoke. He was gazing at her with this weirdly intense look in his eyes (holy crap, those eyes, they were so pretty, nobody’s eyes should be allowed to be that freakin’ blue) she’d never seen on anyone before.

“I’m not… your Dipper,” his emphasis the ‘your’ was strange, condescending, as if he loathed saying it.

She scooted away, her back hitting the arm of the chaise.

All she could think about was a gnome drenched in blood, babbling in terror before exploding violently.

”Then who are you?” she whispered, eyes wide.

He smiled, and not unkindly, either. It was… strange. It was a kind smile from someone who didn’t look like such things came to them naturally. It was nothing like her twin’s smile.

Nothing like it at all.

It did something to her insides. Something she didn’t understand. Something she didn’t know how to interpret or name.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, keeping his distance, his legs twitching as if he wanted to get closer to her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Okay,” she said, not believing him in the slightest. ‘Cause. Like. The blood-gnome. Had that been him? Had he done that? She hadn’t seen it, but in retrospect, it totally made sense for him to have done that somehow. “But who are you?” she asked again.

“I’m something of an… alternate version of the Dipper you know.” The more he spoke, the more she found his voice to be different and strange. Plus, he looked so similar to Dipper, but Mabel only ever saw her bro’s birthmark once in a blue moon. This guy had it front and center, and his hair was slicked back, and she lowkey wanted to touch it, just to see what it felt like. His voice was deeper than Dipper’s. More monotone, too. It was bizarre.

It was… it was attractive, is what it was. His look and attitude, the whole shebang, it was just insanely attractive. Wait, no, no! Mabel thought to herself. It’s cool, Mabel girl, you’re all good, everything’s a-okay, it’s just that he looks like your bro, alright? No big deal. Well, okay, you shouldn’t be having those kinds of thoughts about your bro, either, but we’re well past that.

“Alternate… version…?” Wait. Shit. Maybe he was… “Are you the anti-Dipper?” She whispered frantically, trying to back away more as if her back wasn’t already firmly pressed against the armrest. “There’s tons of different versions of me, I know that, but I’ve never seen another version of Dipper, and you look just freakin’ like him except for your whole… style and general demeanor, I guess, so-“ she was trying to get up, but holy hot pockets, that was some serious dizziness right there.

Moreover, was there another Mabel in this universe? She hadn’t seen another Mabel in years. It’d be… interesting to see one again. Wait, shit, if he was the anti-Dipper, there was the anti-Mabel somewhere around there, and Mabel was not at all confident she could currently best the anti-Mabel in a fight. And something told her the anti-Mabel wasn’t exactly one for fighting fair and waiting till she was ready. She wasn’t the meme-worth Inigo Montoya, and this wasn’t The Princess Bride.

Dammit.

Wait, he’d said he’d never expected to see her again. And she’d definitely never met him before, she would’ve remembered a fancy, older version of her bro, which could only mean he was talking about the other Mabel. Had something happened to her? Had she left, maybe?

“I’m not,” he cut in quickly, moving towards her slowly, like she was a feral cat ready to book it at any moment. “I’m not the… anti-Dipper, or whatever it was you said.”

She looked around. They appeared to be in some sort of dressing room. No, wait, it was Gideon’s dressing room! Except it wasn’t, because Not-Dipper was there, lounging on the ultra-fancy chaise as if he owned it, which he might very well have done, because Not-Dipper didn’t exactly look like he was a broke college student.

He looked like he used hundred dollar bills as tissues like Woody Harrelson in Zombieland.

Still very much fighting the urge to attempt to GTFO, as the kids say, Mabel turned back to him. “What are you, then?” He blinked for a moment, as if he were surprised, and then she belted out more questions. “What’s your name? How old are you? You don’t look like you’re the same age as me, which is weird if we’re kinda-sorta-pseudo-twins. Why am I here? Where even is here? How-“

“Okay, let’s do this properly, shall we?” He tilted his head when he spoke, the corners of his lips curling upwards in another one of those strange smiles that did something to Mabel’s insides. “One question at a time,” he said, holding up a long, slender finger. “You can ask me anything you want, and I promise to answer truthfully. However,” he crossed one leg over the other, his foot dangling off his knee, the arm closest to her draping casually over the back of the chaise, “for every question I answer, I get to ask one of you in return. You don’t have to answer me, of course, but if you choose not to, that’ll be the end of our little game,” he paused for a moment. “For the time being, at least. Sound fair?”

She nodded hesitantly. She could stop at any time, right?

“Go ahead, then,” he waved the hand that dangled haphazardly over the chaise.

“What’s your name?”

“Mason William Gleeful, but I’ve always been called Dipper,” he said easily, as if he’d been fully expecting that very question.

“Because of the birthmark, I assume,” Mabel was very careful not to phrase it as a question, not to raise the pitch in her voice at the end of her sentence. She didn’t know how he’d react if she asked two questions in a row.

“A fair assumption,” he agreed with a slight nod and another one of those smiles. Ugh. Could ya not, man? Like, for real, Mabel thought. His smile was most definitely not helping her nausea. “And your name? Your full name, if you would.”

“Oh, um,” was she seriously forgetting her own name? Jeez, Mabel, get it together, he’s not Dipper, get over it! “M- Mabel Caroline Pines,” she managed to stutter out.

“Pines, hm? Interesting. Alright then. Shall I go along with your other questions from before, as well?”

She shook her head. “Actually, I was wondering about your last name,” he raised his eyebrows at her and motioned for her to continue. “There’s a sort of… psychic, I guess is what you’d call him, in my universe, and he has that last name. Is that… I mean… we are in what looks like his dressing room, so…”

“I did shows here,” he said quietly, a strange look in his eye, as if he wasn’t seeing her despite looking right at her. “Once upon a time.”

“Oh. I see,” she squeaked out.

His gaze sharpened on her again, and he was moving closer to her, and Mabel tried to back up further, her sneakers scrambling against the fabric of the chaise. Eeek way too close way too close back the fudge up, man, what are you even-

“Why were you in his dressing room?” He was right in front of her face by that point, like waaaaaaay too close, ‘cause their noses were almost brushing and she could see each individual eyelash, and god his eyes were even more startlingly beautiful up close, and she wanted to reach up and touch-

No no no no, bad, bad Mabel, he’s not your Dipper, this is a different version! she told herself firmly. No touchy!

“We gave each other makeovers,” she said, trying very hard to keep her voice even. When he raised his eyebrows at her, she got mildly defensive. “I was twelve! He was… I dunno, ten or eleven! Jeez!” He chuckled at that, then leaned away from her, satisfied with her answer, she supposed, and resumed his previous position as if he’d never moved from it at all.

As if he hadn’t just sent a chill down her spine that was… not altogether unpleasant, which was significantly more concerning than it would’ve been if she’d hated every second he’d been near her.

She pursed her lips and put it from her mind. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” he said easily. “And you?”

“Nineteen,” she told him quietly, surprised at his age. She glanced at the foot he’d balanced on his knee.

His shoes were fancy, too. Everything about him seemed to be. “Not what you were expecting, I see,” he observed from her expressions. Damn her and her expressive face!

“Well, it makes sense, because you certainly look older than… than my Dipper.” Her voice shook on the word ‘my’.

His hand clenched into a fist.

She didn’t know what to think of it. Was he angry, or did it mean nothing?

“But it also doesn’t make sense, because if it’s a parallel universe, we should be the same age, I would think.”

“Well, not necessarily,” Not-Dipper reasoned. “In some universes, time moves at different rates, from what I’ve gathered. In our case, it’s the same, but it seems I was born earlier. I was born in 1993, whereas you were born in…” he thought for a moment, tilting his head to the side. “1999.”

“Oh.” She’d never noticed that when interacting with other Mabels. Perhaps it was simply because she was too preoccupied with not dying. It had seemed rather urgent at the time.

“Indeed,” he nodded. “So, your questions,” he reminded her after a few seconds of silence.

“Right.” What had they been again? He kept looking at her, she had to get him to stop doing that. It was distracting. His eyes were distracting. She couldn’t think when they were in her, dammit. Oh! That was it! “Where are we?”

“My universe. I found you with and brought you here through a portal,” he stuck a hand in his pocket. “If you meant the locale, however, as I said before, this was our-“ he cut himself off, took a breath. “My dressing room until several years ago, when I stopped performing.”

“I… see,” she said slowly. So where was the other Mabel, then? Shouldn’t there be a fancy, blue-eyed, properly Adult™ version of herself somewhere? She looked around the dressing room (holy crapinoli, she didn’t think she’d ever seen so much blue in one room), but there were no signs of a woman anywhere. There were no perfume bottles or makeup on the vanity, no dresses on the clothing rack, nothing.

How strange.

“Why were you in Gravity Falls?” He asked.

“To get away.” Helooked at her questioningly. Did it count if it was an unspoken question? She wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t risking it. “I needed an escape. College can be… stressful.”

That wasn’t the full reason, of course, but she wasn’t lying, either.

“Interesting.” He tapped his fingers on his leg. How could a person’s fingers be pleasant to look at?

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You needed help,” he said simply, shrugging a shoulder. He winced slightly when he did, but just a bit; the change in expression so minor she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. “However did you find yourself kidnapped by gnomes, of all things? Gnomes who wanted you for their queen, no less.”

She looked away. It’d been a long time since she had fought against anything but class schedules and exams she wasn’t prepared for.

“They… caught me off guard,” she told him quietly. “They tried something similar when I was a kid, but they lost. It never occurred to me that they might try again.”

“Gnomes are persistent little things,” he mused. “They dislike losing, and they are quite stubborn. It stands to reason that they’d try again if you’d beaten them before.”

“What… what did you do?” Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “To the gnomes, I mean. Unless, of course, I’m misremembering, because there is every chance I am, what with the concussion I very likely have and all, so if I am just say the word, but it seemed pretty dang clear that-“

“I killed them,” he said bluntly. His face was bored, disinterested. Apathetic, even. It didn’t even seem to be bothering him. How could it not be bothering him? Unless…

Unless he’d killed before.

The human brain could get used to just about anything if given enough time.

“You- you killed them,” her voice was horrified, she knew. She could hear it in her tone. Yeah, she’d wanted to get away from them, she’d wanted them to leave her alone, and maybe she’d even wanted to give them a good whack, but she hadn’t wanted them dead.

“Of course I did,” he sounded surprised at her reaction. “They hurt you. They were going to hurt you far worse.”

“I know that,” she whispered. “I know that. But that doesn’t give you the right to just… you can’t be someone’s judge, jury, and executioner. That’s not right.”

“I only did it to save you, Mabel.” She had only heard Not-Dipper say her name once before.

It was different than when Dipper said it. Maybe it was because Not-Dipper’s voice was a little deeper, a little smoother-sounding?

“You weren’t safe. Not in your universe.” His eyes were burning, which was strange since they were the color of ice. “I can keep you safe. I will keep you safe.”

“Ummm… that’s cool and all, but that’s pretty freakin’ unsettling, to have somebody just, like. ‘Splode a bunch of gnomes for you,” she eyed him warily, still trying to figure out how to get away from the dude without crawling. Would he get angry with her for not being appreciative? She didn’t want to see him angry. Would he hurt her?

“I don’t want you to be scared of me,” he told her quietly, his voice a little sad.

She almost lied and told him she wasn’t scared of him, that everything was hunky-dorey, and that he should smile.

She didn’t.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have, I dunno, made people explode in front of me?” She was being sarcastic, she knew, and that was probably a bad idea, but sometimes she just couldn’t help herself.

“Gnomes aren’t people, technically,” he reminded her.

“Semantics,” she waved his argument away. “They’re living creatures. Or they were, anyway, before you decided to go and massacre them.”

Not-Dipper had a look on his face that suggested he wasn’t opposed to killing living creatures, whether they were human or not.

Maybe he already had.

Mabel hoped he hadn’t, but something in the way he held himself gave her a sneaking suspicion that he had.

“I’m sorry if that… bothers you, or if it scares you. I don’t want to make you feel those things,” he sighed. “That said, I think it’d be best if I were up front with you: if put in the same situation again -if you were in danger again, that is to say- I’d do the same thing.”

She crossed her arms, pursed her lips, and glared at him. “Take me home, please.”

There was panic in his eyes. “I- I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The portal… it doesn’t work like that. I’ll have to find another way to get you back,” he explained. She was still glaring at him when he continued. “But for the time being, you can stay with me. If you want,” he turned his body to face her for the first time since he’d hugged her.

“Well. I suppose that’ll have to- WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?” She was pointing, horrified, to his shoulder, where one arrow, perhaps about a foot long, was embedded in his shoulder. Another was in his side, the one that had been facing away from her. Blood had seeped through to pool around the entry wounds, though the bleeding seemed to have stopped. His eyes followed her shaking finger.

“Oh, right. I got shot with a couple of arrows. Just gnome ones, though, so they’re quite small,” she dropped her hand back to the soft fabric of the chaise.

“Okay, so you saved me, and you got hurt doing it,” she was saying this to herself, staring at her knees and speaking as if he couldn’t hear her when he could absolutely hear her. “Okay. Okay. This is fine, this is fine, Mabel girl.” She looked back up at him. “Okay, let’s go… wherever we need to go for you to treat those… yeah…”

“Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll take you there.”

He helped her to her feet, and she still found herself a bit dizzy, wobbling a bit.

“Would you like me to carry you?” he offered, steadying her with a hand on her arm.

“Carry m- say what now?”

“I don’t mind, particularly if you’re having difficulty walking still.” As if that explanation was adequate! Why was homeboy cool with it at all, though? She’d gotten a hella nasty gash on her leg once in PE, can ya guess how many people offered to freakin’ carry her to the nurse? Zero, is the answer. Zero.

What a weird dude. And Mabel was in love with her gay twin brother, so if she, of all people, thinks you’re weird, then you are weird.

“Nope!” she squeaked out way too quickly to sound even remotely close to being normal. “I’m good on the carrying front, thanks! Got it covered!”

“Suit yourself.” Ugh why, why was he smiling that smile again, it reminded her of Dipper and also not, and it made her nervous as all hell. “This way.” And with that, he promptly strolled out of his dressing room, clearly expecting her to follow.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #gf fanfiction #pinecest #mabel pines #dipper gleeful #reverse dipper #reverse falls #fanfiction #my wriitng #Mabel’s all-in-one guide to being a shooting star #fucking hell RD is so hot

25 notes · View notes

eregyrn-falls-art · 5 years

Photo

HAPPY Summe- HALLOWEEN FROM THE PINES FAMILY! (click to embiggen)

I’d been meaning to revisit these cryptid costume designs, and thought Halloween would be a good time to do that!

Especially because, when designing, I had in mind to offer each of the Pines individually as stickers... and in some cases in groups as well.

To that end, all of the designs above (plus a couple of groupings), including the original piece from Summerween, are now up in my shop on Redbubble! They’re available as stickers (often in two sizes, small and large), and on whatever other merchandise it seemed like it might look good on.

Eregyrn.redbubble.com

(If you would like some other combo of the figures than what you see there, any merch you don’t see there, or a background color other than black, feel free to contact me and I can try to upload/edit what’s there.)

I would also like to take a moment to thank @coughsyrup-cosmonaut, who created a spectacular Mothman cosplay that provided some inspiration to me when I was designing Ford’s costume. They graciously gave me their okay to continue using the design it inspired in this merch.

In addition to Mothman Ford, of course, we have Jersey Devil Stan, Mabel as a Jackalope -- sorry, Antelabbit! -- with Waddles in a hand-knitted mer-pig tail, and Dipper as a pterosaur/thunderbird. (Being Dipper, he’s of course doing a cryptozoology Deep Cut -- not just an homage to the pterosaur they encountered in Gravity Falls, but, to 19th century legends and rare photographs of people posing with what appears to be a pterosaur that was dubbed a “thunderbird” at the time. There are some fun mysteries involving these photos, and it’s been covered on various documentaries.)

#gravity falls #halloween #stanford pines #stanley pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #mothman #the jersey devil #jackalopes #pterosaurs #thunderbird cryptid #summerween #my art #merch

2K notes · View notes

asterkiss · 3 years

Text

Read from beginning here.

- CLAIMED Pt. V

When Mabel awoke, she found herself laying in an extravagant four poster canopy bed with sheer curtains. Confused and disorientated, she sat up and looked down to find herself dressed differently than she recalled. Last she’d checked, she’d been wearing her favourite bunny pajamas.

Now she was wearing a pink nightgown which was—was that silk? Mabel felt some of the material between her finger and thumb, frowning.

It was then that the curtains surrounding the perimeter of the bed were thrown back to reveal a young woman with blue hair. Mabel snapped her head up and their eyes met. Almost instantly, the woman drew back in surprise, eyes widening. ‘O-Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought you were still sleeping!’

She lurched away, the curtains dropping back into place just as Mabel leaned forward and reached out. ‘Wait, don’t go—!’

There was a pause and then, almost tentatively, the curtains parted just enough to reveal a sliver of the woman’s face, her gaze averted down. ‘Y-Yes? What is it?’

Mabel blinked at her timid demeanour. She was a pretty lady however Mabel got the feeling she wasn’t human considering the blue hair and stark-white skin. Mabel squinted. Were those pointed things poking out between her hair meant to be her ears…?

‘Um…’

Mabel snapped her attention back to the woman’s face who looked clearly uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny. ‘Oh, right, um. Haha, so this may sound like a random question buuuut… where am I and how did I get here?’

The woman blinked. ‘I, um… I don’t know. I’m just here to bring you these.’ She poked her hands through the curtains to reveal a pile of clothes within her grasp. Mabel stared at them. She had a whole lot of questions right now—most important being was she in danger?

‘If I put those on, will someone answer my questions?’

The woman nodded. ‘Y-Yes, I’ve been instructed to take you to the King after you put these on.’

‘Oh okay, makes sense— wait, what!? The King?’ Mabel yelled, causing the woman to flinch at her volume but Mabel was too alarmed to notice. ‘What King? Am I in some other country? How is that possible, I don’t even have my passport on me!’ Had she been smuggled? Was this some teenager abduction ring!?

The woman gave a shake of her head. ‘Ah, no… I meant our Erlking. The King of the Fairies.

You’re in the Fairy World, Miss.’

- CLAIMED Pt. VI

Okay, so she had been whisked away to the Fairy World through a magical portal in a lake and was now being taken for an audience with their King.

That was fine. No biggie. Totally cool.

—except holy shit she was freaking out!!

Mabel couldn’t help tugging at the dress they’d made her put on. It was a green gown that fell down to her ankles, belted at the waist with a silver sash that matched the trimming on the square neckline.

It was pretty but it was more like some sort of medieval cosplay gown she’d expect to see at those nerdy fairs Dipper went to.

Mabel missed her sweaters.

Elaine—which was the name the blue-haired woman had introduced herself as—had insisted on braiding Mabel’s hair for presentation and although she’d tried to refuse initially, the woman had looked so crestfallen at her denial that she’d felt guilty and agreed to it in the end. Dammit. The woman had better puppy-dog eyes than her—and that was saying something!

(She was thankful McGucket had been able to give her a hair tonic to regrow her hair out after making her deal with Bill).

‘Here we are, Miss.’ Elaine came to a stop in front of two large ornate doors. Elaine had lead her out of the room she’d been sleeping where Mabel had found herself stood on a platform suspended high in the trees upon which the small hut was built upon. Various canopy walkways connected the woodland trees and platforms and the entire forest seemed to glow in the darkness from the treetop settlement.

It was beautiful.

They’d descended to the forest floor and made their way to an incredibly giant tree with two doors at its base, built into the wood. Even when Mabel titled her head all the way back she couldn’t see the top of the tree. It seemed to go on endlessly as if it could pierce the clouds themselves.

Elaine bowed her head and stepped to the side and Mabel couldn’t help looking to her. ‘Wait, you’re not coming in with me?’

The woman shook her head frantically. ‘Ah, no no, I’m not permitted!’

Oh. Mabel felt slightly disappointed. So far, Elaine was the only person—or, uh, whatever she was—she’d spoken to. And while she was overly timid, she didn’t seem so bad.

‘Okay then, guess… I’ll go in?’ Sucking in a deep breath of air, Mabel squared her shoulders and pushed at the doors. They gave way beneath her with ease, opening wide and allowing her to step forward.

Time to meet the Fairy King.

The interior was plunged into dim candle-lit darkness and as she entered the hall she felt as if several pairs of eyes from within it were peering out at her. Her attention however was captured by the throne waiting for her ahead. It was elevated, with a path of steps leading up toward it. The teenager could hear the sound of quiet chittering and whispers from either side of the pathway, dark eyes blinking at her from behind the lines of trees.

It was unnerving.

But not as unnerving as the King seated within the throne. He was everything she’d expect of a Fairy King. Well-dressed in a form-fitting robe and long platinum hair that fell down the expanse of his shoulders in waves.

God, he was attractive.

He regarded her with green eyes, lips twitched into a smile. ‘Mabel Pines, it’s been a long time.’

She blinked. ‘Uh… has it?’ She forced an awkward laugh, rubbing one of her arms. ‘Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.’ She would certainly recall having met someone as pretty as him before.

The King blinked at that. ‘Oh, but we have. Of course you were just a child then.’

‘I…. huh?’ Mabel frowned, tilting her head. ‘What are you talking about?’

The King chuckled. ‘One thing at a time, first let us bring out the prisoner.’

‘Prisoner?’ Mabel repeated, feeling unnerved and even more confused. The sound of shuffling came from behind and when Mabel looked back over her shoulder, the doors were pulled aside to give way to—

‘Gnomes?’ Mabel cried. She half-expected to see Jeff or Shmebulock but the group of four gnomes weren’t any she recognised. They were carrying a small cage and as they came closer, a voice became clearer.

‘…are you hearing me? I am speaking here, you little rodents!! I was destroying dimensions before you were born!’

The cage was dropped between her and the throne and crouching down, Mabel glanced inside it to see—

‘Bill!?’

The triangular demon span around within his container, meeting her gaze. When he did, his form turned red, gaze full of fury. ‘YOU—!’

Mabel flinched back at the anger in his voice but before she could speak, the King cut in.

‘Now then, let’s begin, shall we?’

Mabel raised her attention back toward the King. ‘Begin… what?’

The fae ignored her, regarding the cage at the foot of his throne with narrowed eyes. ‘Now then Bill Cipher, you are charged with unlawfully staking claim on a soul that was already marked as ours. How do you plead?’

#claimed #mabill #slinks in quietly and drops this and then scutters back out #dont mention my long absence lol

17 notes · View notes

mozart-the-meerkitten · 3 years

Text

I keep having all these random Wingfeather Falls ideas and forgetting to share them, so have today’s:

Dipper and Mabel take the Wingfeather kids to a Comic Con. (Artham and Fiddleford come along as chaperones and for fun) The kids all agree to cosplay as their relatives because they think it would be funny and the Wingfeathers don’t know who else to dress up as. So Mabel and Dipper dress up like Stan and Ford, Janner dresses up like Artham (because of course he does), Kal is Esben, Sara is Aurendelle (because then she and Janner can be extra cute in their couple-ness) and Leeli is... Podo. The boys were definitely 100% going to argue who got to be Podo and then Leeli just. appears dressed up like him. No one is going to argue with her. Podo lends her his legbone for authenticity.

Fiddleford has just left his hat at home and put on a labcoat and says he’s pretending to be a scientist. Kalmar points out that he already IS a scientist. Fidds doesn’t know what to say to that so Kal tells him he likes his labcoat and drops it.

Artham is just. himself. complete with wings and that is. DEFINITELY not a real sword that he’s brought in, Security, ABSOLUTELY NOT. He is very much enjoying not having to hide his wings and actually having people sincerely compliment them and tell him he looks awesome. Several people take pictures with them. He is very glad Mabel has explained cameras.

Dipper and Mabel have never actually been to a Comic Con and so none of them actually know what’s going on. At least half of them enter sensory overload as soon as they walk in the door and the whole group wanders aimlessly for about half an hour before figuring out what they’re doing (is this based on my own experience it absolutely is). After that they have fun.

It’s worth noting that before this they exchanged a bunch of the Wingfeathers’ gold and silver coins for real money so they are all loaded right now. They all buy waaaaay too much stuff.

Dipper dragging Janner to get autographs from celebrities even tho Janner has no idea who they are Dipper’s like, “I will tell you about them later but trust me they are SO COOL.” he also keeps dragging Janner to panels and it’s the same deal. Janner does find a lot of them fascinating though.

Mabel must buy one of every pretty thing she finds. She and Sara and Leeli are seen several times discussing jewelry, clothes and some very lovely daggers they found.

Kal keeps spending his money on snacks and really random things. He buys like 40 action figures and lego pieces despite not knowing what they are he just thought they looked cool. He also definitely bought one of those life-size videogame swords that aren’t real but look super cool.

Someone asks for a picture of Sara and Janner together because they are obviously a couple even though nobody has a clue who they’re cosplaying as. Everyone just thinks they’re super cute.

Leeli has never been so pleased in all her life because absolutely no one has looked at her with pity or remarked about her leg they just think her costume is cool and half the people she meets think the crutch and her leg are literally just part of the costume.

Artham and Fiddleford release the children and just sort of wander around looking at stuff. They buy some nice new leatherbound journals and Fidds finds gadgets and gizmos for his inventions.

In general they all just have a really fun time hanging out and being their ridiculous selves without judgment from anyone.

@ash-grimmy

#the wingfeather saga #gravity falls #wingfeather falls #comic con #silliness #these random ideas just keep coming to me and I finally thought to write one down xD #I may write up some more while I'm in the mood

4 notes · View notes

nautiscarader · 4 years

Text

Wendip Week 3 - Love potion

(Ao3)

- I love, smoochikins - I love you too, pumpkin pie... Wendy and Dipper didn't even start drinking their shared milkshake with two straws, as they were too busy ogling each other and calling each other names so sweet it started to rival the very dessert they were not eating. Their table at the Lazy Susan's was observed by three people, one of them feeling more and more guilty by the minute.

- Mabel, what have you done to them? - Melody asked the teenager - Well... - Mabel shied away and began toying with her hair - You remember that Love God incident? - Oh, the burning balloon one? - Soos added - Or do you mean the ethically questionable practice of using a magical potion to make people fall for each other without asking them if they are up for it? - Mabel, didn't you learn anything from the Tambry and Robbie incident? - Melody crossed her arms. - I did, but... - Mabel stuttered - But they look so cute together! And Dipper has been in love with her since forever, and Wendy obviously has a thing for him, except she's too cool to say it, and... I just thought that maybe they need a little push. And hey, Tambry and Robbie turned out fine. - Mabel - Melody interrupted her. - I have never heard Wendy say anything remotely as uncool as "smoochikins", and Dipper would have sooner started flying than openly admit he's in love with Wendy. That's not them.

Mabel sighed and lowered her head in shame.

- Okay, I guess we need to undo it. - Does the love potion have some instructions, or... - Melody leaned forward. - It does! It says that it should wear off after three hours, but it's been more! - she showed her the empty bottle - And trust me, I tried sprinkling them with the anti-love potion, but it just didn't work. Dipper just got an umbrella and offered it to Wendy so they started ogling each other underneath it. - I think we need to bring big guns. - Melody spoke - Let's drag them to Ford. =============

- I love you, my did-dop. - I love you too, my cœur-duroy... - It's worse than I thought. Ford spoke, watching the two teenagers squeezed into the same seat of his mind-reading machine. Neither Dipper, nor Wendy looked uncomfortable, and they didn't protest when Ford put a huge wired dome over their heads to measure their brain activity.

- Okay, but can they be brought back to reality? Earlier today they have been doing the "No, you hang up first" for an hour, and they weren't even on the phone! - From what Mabel described, it looks like this is some sort of liquefied spell - Ford spoke, watching as the pink, gooey substance sticks to the side of his glass probe - If we don't have a remedy for it, then we must break the spell the usual way. There was time in Melody's life when the phrase "break the spell the usual way" would be considered odd. Those times were long gone.

- So we either find some equally crazy witch, or... - Or we see what can compromise the spell's integrity. - Ford ended - We need to find what holds them together, and see if we can wedge something, metaphorically, between them. - Okay, let's do it. - Mabel sniffed - If we want to repair their hearts, we need to re-break them!

========

- Look, Wendy! - Mabel sneaked between her and her brother - Dipper has a whole collection of fantasy red-hairs! Just like you! Oh no! - she spoke in a pretend voice - He has tons of other crushes, not just you!

She waved a huge stack of posters depicting scantily-clad women or elves, all bearing a striking resemblance to Wendy. For a split of a second the teenager looked at them, and just when Mabel thought she would be able to divert her attention, she pushed her away to look at Dipper.

- Cool, I know who to cosplay for next Halloween! They do look neat.

=======

- Look, Dipper! That is Wendy's ideal boyfriend - she showed him what might have counted as a forged screenshot of an on-line dating site, if it wasn't written in crayon. - She says she likes men, not boys, who are tall, and not tiny, and she definitely doesn't like journals! Oh, what a tragedy! You two have negative sixty percent match! - You are right - Dipper spoke to Mabel, once more bringing a smile to her face - That's why I got myself a gym membership, I gotta keep in shape and not spend the rest of my life in books. Mabel groaned.

=======

- I know what we should name our children! I've already started a college fund for them! - And I have made blueprints for our house!

Mabel shared the with Wendy and Dipper, trying to come up with new excuses to break the powerful spell they were under. But nothing that could come to her head didn't work - no matter their differences, one of them always found a way to brush them off. And even though she tried to mentally silence it, the sounds of them kissing only cemented their cursed love.

- I'm sorry, Dipper, I'm sorry Wendy - Mabel sniffed - I thought I knew what I was doing, because I wanted you guys to be happy. I shouldn't have messed with your lives...

Suddenly, the squelching of Wendy and Dipper's lips stopped and was replaced by coughing, screams and the cries of utter disgust. Mabel jumped in her seat, and for the first time in her life, she was g;ad to see two people choking to death.

- Wendy! Dipper! You're back! - she cheered - I am really, really sorry, you guys, I- - Mabel, did Dipper and I kiss? - Wendy asked Mabel, her eyes still red. - And why do I feel like I've eaten two pounds of ice cream? - And did I agree to marry her? - Dipper look at his hand with what looked like a plastic ring from bag of cereal over his finger. - Yeah, and it's my fault. Sorry, I am the one to blame. I might have had spiked your drinks with the love potion.

Wendy and Dipper's eyes widened, and as they were about to complain, Mabel continued.

But I guess me admitting to that undid the spell! The dishonesty! That's what breaks love! Ford was right! I was dishonest with you, and that finally broke it! - Er, I'm afraid not. The three youngsters turned their head and watched as Ford walked into the diner with the same glass test tube he's been experimenting with.

- Turns out the love potion's duration lengthens over time. And since this thing is a year past its expiration date, it should have worn off after 7.5 hours. And it took... - Ford looked at his pocket watch - Seven hours and forty minutes. Acceptable result. Dipper, Wendy and Mabel blinked, sharing the confused looks.

- But of course what Mabel spoke is completely correct, you shouldn't be altering other people's emotions. - Ford grunted - Especially with unapproved chemicals. Well, I'll have to go, I have to dispose of the rest of this, so that any match-makers won't be tempted to use it. Mabel turned towards her friend and brother once more, their faces still filled with a mixture of confusion and bewilderment.

- So... what are we gonna do now? - I don't know, I guess I have to use that gym card somehow. - Dipper shrugged. - Er, wanna join me? - Sure, I got a whole batch of nerdy comics to read. - Wendy took out the issues of "Ynna, the fighter empress". - Hope they don't charge me for just sitting there. Mabel watched as the two walked out of the diner, chuckling to some joke only they understood, almost as if nothing has happened.

- Well, at least I got out of it without having to suffer consequences for my actions! - Mabel cheered herself up. - That will be a hundred and eighty-five dollars for all the desserts they ordered. - Lazy Susan spoke, slamming the receipt onto the table - Do you have the cash, or should I bring the mop?

#Wendip #wendipweek #wendip week 2020 #nautiscaraderfics #love potion

19 notes · View notes

jaideite · 5 years

Note

Heyo, can I get a shoot, deku, and bakugou head canon with a s/o who likes to cosplay on their free time

i do plan on cosplaying one day. all cosplayers are like so pretty like what’s y’all secret😔

SHOTO, DEKU AND BAKUGOU WITH A S/O WHO COSPLAYS

Pairing(s): bakugou x reader, midoriya x reader, todoroki x reader

Characters: bakugou, todoroki, midoriya

Warnings: fluff

SHOTO TODOROKI

— he’s really surprised

— why would you dress up to be someone else? you’re already perfect in his eyes

— it’s super weird when you ask him

— “how do I look?”

— cause he

— though he doesn’t get it he totally supports you

— he likes to buy you the make up and stuff you would need

— he also likes to do it just to use endeavors credit card

— he buys you the best cosplay costumes

— superhero? You better guarantee you’ll have the best hero costume at comicon

— speaking of cons

— you like to take him with you

— he buys the passes so that way you can see all your favorite actors and sit in halls

— he likes to watch you go from you to whatever character you’re cosplaying as

— it gets better when you ask him does he want to cosplay with you

— you guys spend some time looking but finally you guys cosplay

— y’all end up going as azula and zuko from avatar

— he doesn’t really like zuko because they share do many similarities

— scar over eye

— fire powers

— no mother in their life

— but you assure him you still love him

KATSUKI BAKUGOU

— “why the fuck are you green, dipshit?”

— “I’m Gamora, from Guardians of the Galaxy!” my baby ilysm n miss u T~T

— “Tch”

— he thinks your so weird

— but lmao that’s one of the reasons why he’s going out with you so uh—

— but when you do normal cosplay he finds it really weird still

— why the hell are you dressing up as fictional characters

— your ass is already fine in more ways then one

— especially when characters have special traits to them

— “why are there whiskers on your cheeks?!”

— “I’m !”

— “who?”

— he has his parents make you your costumes

— and he gives them to you as gifts on like anniversaries or holidays

— “what’s this?”

— “open it and find out you idiot.”

—“is this

— he also buys you those passes too

— don’t get him to try and cosplay

— he won’t

— unless it’s a couples thing then you best believe you two will have the best outfits and win

— and later he realizes you roped him into it but doesn’t care cause y’all won

— plus you were happy and you got your stupid picture

MIDORIYA IZUKU

— this is y’all when y’all cosplay

— speaking of cosplay

— cosplay ??

— dress up ??

— ptsd flashbacks of his childhood

— no but seriously he gets excited

— another way for you guys to spend time together

— you guys cosplay heroes

— or characters

— but definitely heroes

— you guys will one hundred percent cosplay as all might

— that was the first thing he wanted to ask you when he found out about it

— of course you guys spend time watching cosplayers do their thing

— you’ve done one couples cosplay lmao

— you two have managed to do dipper and mabel from gravity falls (happy birthday to them)

— which took a while cause y’all are broke lmao

— but it ended up working

— and of course

— you guys take pictures

— like that one ‘me and my girl are official headasses’ couples cosplay

— look it up if you have no idea what I’m talking about

— that’s you guys

— but dressed up as all might

— that’s also his background on his phone but shh you’re not supposed to know that

303 notes · View notes

cosplayawesomeofficial · 5 years

Photo

Reposted from @amhcosplays (@get_regrann) - It’s #wendywednesday and, well, Dipper had it coming. Yep, he didn’t vote for me in the @xcosercostume @xcoser_costume cosplay contest. What’s that? You’re going to go vote now? Good idea. 😜 . Seriously, though, folks, I am not a fan of popularity contests. I believe cosplays should be judged by presentation or performance or craftsmanship, not by the number of times the cosplayer’s friends and family vote. I also really dislike nagging people to do something... which is why I avoid fundraising. 🤷🏻‍♀️ . That being said, a friend told me about the contest, so I entered. And of course it’s a popularity contest! 😳😳😳 No chance of winning unless every single one of you votes daily today, tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday. Which would be great... but I’m a realist. My goal is no longer to qualify for one of the top prize-winning spots. Nope. My goal is to have more votes than the little kid dressed in a Goku costume by a parent. 😁 . So... would you take a moment to vote? The clickable link is in my bio; once there, click Open Gallery, then scroll down to my Midnight cosplay, then click it to vote. You can see the Midnight photo I entered in my XCoser highlight. Thank you! . Photo by @forests_edge_photography Event: Completely Casual Cosplay Shoot . #wendy #wendycorduroy #wendygravityfalls #wendycosplay #wendycorduroycosplay #gravityfallswendy #gravityfalls #mysteryshack #mabel #dipper #soos #lumberjacksdaughter #amhcosplays #cosplay #cosplayer #michigancosplayer #cosplaygirl #cosplaybabe #cosplayers #over30cosplay #cosplayersofinstagram CPA ▫️ https://ift.tt/2JzRqpF ▫️ - #regrann https://ift.tt/2K1AxTX

#mycosplay #cosplay girl #cosplay girls #cos #cosplayer #cosplayers #cosplay game #cosplay #anime #ma

2 notes · View notes

ilseofskadi · 5 years

Text

i know i’m not going to anime midwest this year (or at least like 90% sure i’m not going) but i’ve been thinking about cosplays

naturally, i have my yellow cosplay, that i love and am proud of

with my hair straightened, like i normally would for cosplay to fit it in a wig, i could pull off toboe

i’ve done a kinda-cosplay of dipper for halloween and i could also pull of mabel

i’d love to cosplay morgan

same with moon

toboe and the twins would be quick and easy bc i could just scavenge around for things in my closet that would work well; i probably wouldn’t ever do morgan or moon bc of money and access; and of course i will always have yellow

#outofthenotebook #you can ignore this #i also miss my old friend groups #i've also briefly thought of cosplaying rachel from baccano but i get nervous abt that bc i feel that i'd be awkward #sometimes i feel like i'm not a real fan bc i've only watched the anime and have only read the first two books #but i still really love the series

1 note · View note

roguetatertot · 6 years

Note

Cloud ☁ from FFVII of COURSE, Linda 🍔 from Bobs Burgers and Mabel 🌈 from Gravity Falls!

Haha Linda??? ALLRIIIIIGHT! I’m down with that! :D Maybe it’s because if I ever became a mom, I would be just like her?“Alriiiight! Freaky friend-fiction!”AND YES OF COURSE MABEL!! Once I get my braces (someday) then I’ll REALLY be Mabel! I’ll have to cosplay her!!

#spadedoutpup #ziggy's blah blah blah #spacedoutpup

2 notes · View notes

theoryofthefalls · 7 years

Text

TOTF Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven: The Author

Author: @moonbeamjean Wordcount: 9.8K Summary: Jessica finds herself face to face with a page in The Journal that paints Bill in an unflattering light. Much like the unflattering light and dust that’s clogging up the newly discovered spare room in the Mystery Shack.

A/N: This chapter is a nice exploration of some of the friendships that Jess has in Gravity Falls and the kind of roads they will take. Bill of course is a downhill spiral of deception and manipulation, but there’s also Dipper, McGucket, Kiara, Grunkle Stan, and yes, even early clues to ‘The Author’ that she’s only going to realise months down the line. Thank you so much for waiting on the update, and I hope you enjoy!

A whole month was gone now. Weeks worth of Summer were vanishing faster and faster, and Jessica Jean felt like she was becoming bigger than her bones. There was still fun in the ordinary life and sun of Gravity Falls, for sure. Dipper and Mabel seemed to have adventures every day of the week. What was the latest one? Oh yeah. Time Travel. That was possible now. Just casually thrown in there, along with a new pig, while Jess was running a Kissing Booth for Stanford Pines’ silly carnival games. But at least her ache of jealousy was dying. The power Bill gave her was being practiced more and more, and her little secret was spilling out beyond just the twins and Kiara.

Soos was the fourth person to find out about the little taste of witchcraft. Jess needed his help for a particular dance video and, well, she kind of had to explain how she could just summon a J-Pop cosplay out of thin air. Wendy was next - sneaking out onto the rooftop at sunset to find the blonde floating above the roof-tiles talking to ‘herself’. And then Mabel made those two new friends, Candy and Grenda, and suddenly every second day was being spent playing fairy dress-ups, re-enacting romance movies, and summoning glitter out of nowhere. But that was it. No more people had to know about this. It was supposed to be a secret, and she shouldn’t have been putting it on as a performance at their command (apparently, by Bill’s morals at least.) Still, she could float in front of more people now, which was relaxing. It was so easy to just slip out of focus and relax mid-air, drinking some Pit Cola in the warm glow of Summer, not having to worry about somebody finding her.

Now that the ‘Mystery Twins’ had their own channel and she was actually spending time with them, the videos kept coming and coming and coming. She could upload now on a nearly bi-weekly schedule. And the views were getting good! The small amount of money being made from the ads and watches was turning from a couple of cents into a couple of dollars. If Jessica didn’t have the power to infinitely spawn bills out of her hand, she probably would have celebrated this a little more. In fact, one of her most popular videos was just her slapping her hands together like at a strip club and spawning an infinite amount of green notes. She would have kept them, too, if Stanford hadn’t been heard around the corner at the sound of free money and she had to make it all disappear in a blink.

The only one who seemed to be both skeptical and awed was Dipper. That was no surprise. Originally, the friendship between them was a quiet, awkward, and scarce thing. He would ask the blonde for the video-camera, once even asking about her film degree and what her classes were like. That was a nice afternoon on the back porch. But now that Jess was out of the super-powered closet, there seemed to be a new kind of awkward interaction that the boy took joy in.

“This is Dipper Pines’ Guide to the Unexplained!” he announced into the silver cam-corder. It was the hottest day of Summer, and the babysitters were talking outside on the front porch. The boy scrambled around the nest of prepared notes and evidence - Journal 3, Mabel’s scrapbook of Summer adventures and romances, small piles of glitter and confetti from previous videos. Finally he found a page in Mabel’s book, a polaroid collection of Jess and Kiara Phoenix at the fair, sharing popcorn and the blonde making vulgar smooch-faces to the girl’s disposable camera. “Anomaly Number 38: Jessica Jean.

“She came along with our old babysitter, KP, to look out for us this Summer, and sometime between arriving here and four weeks ago, managed to obtain amazing, nearly limitless magical abilities! Like some kind of over-powered fairy godmother, she’s used this (as you’ve probably seen) for makeovers, saving us from crazy fake psychics, and cleaning around the house!” Dipper remembered the footage he’d sneakily caught of Jess around the Shack, her feet off the ground and reaching up to the tall cabinets of the kitchen. He’d have to splice it in somehow. Or hell, he’d have to edit this whole video together without the babysitter noticing.

Maybe he could borrow Soos’ computer? That would be a challenge for later. Dipper picked up the camera, and with a determined expression he approached the bedroom window. His voice lowered to a whisper. “I have various theories, none of which add up to the stories that she’s given us. It seems to change every time I ask!” He lifted the cam-corder to the windowpane and focused on the two girls standing below by the yellow car. “First it was mystic runes, then she said it was a fairy, and then she said she was a teen witch all along! And then one time—! One time Jess was just like, ‘Oh powers? What powers? I don’t have any!’, which was so frustrating, and—“

Dipper froze. KP was there, looking up at the window into the attic bedroom he and Mabel shared. In fact, it looked for a minute that she was staring right at him. Dressed in her oversized board shorts and tight but covering rashie, she had her had covered the sun from her eyes and staring at something just above the boy’s head. But the real creepy part was the fact that Jessica Jean, subject of the video, was no longer standing there.

“BOO!!!”

He screamed, nearly dropping the camera. Jess didn’t seem to mind, watching him scramble back and bumping his elbow into the frame of his bed. “Hahahaha!!! Oh, man…!!” Gently, gently, she floated down from the rooftop and right-side up once more, nudging the ajar window open and squeezing inside. Hips like hers had a hard time fitting through small spaces, but it was manageable. The blonde floating in the middle of his room, arms hung low and knees curled up. Limp and relaxed, dressed in shorts and a tied-up t-shirt. Peaking over her sunglasses, the camera flew into her hand gently and her thumb hit the record button ‘off’. “Dipper, seriously, if you’re going to film me at least ask!”

This was about the third time she’d caught him now. Always a scolding. Dipper groaned, hopping up on the mattress and watching the magic carefully. “I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he repeated. The usual apology, recited and well-practiced. “I'll ask to use your camera rather than sneak it out of your bag while you and KP are talking about…” Another groan. “Boys.”

Jess snickered. ‘Boy’ talk was not the right age bracket for talking about her friend’s obvious crush on their boss. It was more like ‘Grand-daddy’ talk. Ew. She tried to stay mad, but the kid had rare gem of sarcasm that made her smile. “No, ask before you film a girl without her knowledge! There’s stuff I don’t want the Internet to see!” She frowned on a more serious note then. “Wait… don’t tell me you film Wendy, do you?”

He blushed. Oh God, how many people knew about this awful crush. “No!! No, I would never!!”

A sigh of relief. “Good, then I don’t have to give you a stern talking-to…” Jessica brightened. “Anyway, while I have you here…” She shrugged off the purple back-pack from her shoulders, and proceeded to look through the levitating sack. KP had packed so much bloody sunscreen that it was like they were watching a group of penguins touring Australia. But there, at the bottom of the bag, was a nice cardboard box with an even nicer present inside. Jess shrugged it out, and chucked the box into his hands. “Got you something!”

“W-Woah!” Dipper caught it in an awkward bundle, holding it close. It had a lot of instructions and careful warnings on the side, but he recognised the image. It was a video-camera. Frighteningly similar to her own, that he had used for this whole third of the Summer together. He felt his jaw drop. “I… Wow, this is so cool!” He immediately looked at her. “Did you make this?”

Jess snorted with laughter. Her powers were good but not that good. “Dipper, if I could, I would have done this weeks ago.” She certainly wouldn’t have been able to make all the little foam nuggets that lived inside the box, anyway. Sometimes buying things came with more certainty than just making it out of thin air. Hoisting her legs into the air, the backpack dropped to the ground as she flew up in a casual sitting position. “I bought it yesterday. Figured you might finally stop borrowing my camera if you and Mabel had your own!”

Sharing it between two was going to be way easier than sharing it with three. Dipper grinned. All his footage of the Hide-Behind (or lack of) and the bizarre tooth (more like horrifying, cryptic, island-head-monster, but okay) was going to have some new company. He reeled with ideas of what to film. But he had to ask. After all, he was aware of their quiet but distant friendship, too. “Why are you doing this?”

A shrug. Like most of the things she answered him with. “Well, I’ve been using you guys for my channel as much as you use me for yours.” They called it ‘cameos’, but the truth was the truth. Views spiked with the Mystery Twins, and she was making cents from it. “I’d feel bad if I didn’t get something as a ‘thank you’, so I splurged into my Kissing Booth money and… Well, thank you.”

Dipper smiled. Small, embarrassed, just-as-bad-with-emotions smile, in the dimple of his cheek. He gripped the box tight. “No problem! Uhh… thanks for letting us borrow it for so long, I guess.”

“Anytime, Pine Tree!”

He headed for the others downstairs, the new video-camera in his hands and that familiar trucker-cap on his head. She trusted his anxiety and paranoia not to bring it with them to the public pool today and save it for mystery-solving. The items he had ready for his little ‘study’ of Jess were all around the floor in a mess that looked vaguely like a map of her life. The scrapbook, covered with glitter and macaroni, seemed to be getting thicker and thicker by the day. With the smallest shred of effort, the book raised into her hands and she turned through the open pages. So many pictures of Mabel and Waddles from the fair, scraps of crystals from their shrinking-torch, but there were drawings, too. Crayon and coloured pencil pieces of various caticatures, portraits of Jess and KP holding hands next to a blurry polaroid of them smooching at the fairgrounds.

Jessica grinned, closed the book, and waved it over to Mabel’s bedside. And she would have left it at that, but there was something else in the room that caught her eye. The Journal - equally messy, but in the way that an exploding lab or abused library was, rather than the 5AM dance-party aesthetic of the twin sister’s work. Dipper always kept it close and safe, and frankly she hadn’t seen enough of it for her liking. He didn’t like anyone over the age of 12 getting their hands on it, just in case. She could understand that. It was his secret, as her powers were hers, and she could respect that.

It still didn’t stop her from reading it though.

Perched on Dipper’s unmade bed, legs crossed, the book rested in her lap comfortably. Her fingertips traced the six-fingered hand of the cover fondly, inspected the paper’s slight shine, before she opened it up. Most of the dust between the pages were blown out from finally being read and loved again, but there was still a thin layer baked right into the spine. The pages were so thin and yellowed that she didn’t even use her fingers to turn it, using magic instead to avoid thumb-prints and tears. It seemed like the twins were making their own notes on top of the decades-old originals. ‘Gnomes: Weakness, lawnmowers’. ‘Ghosts, seen at convenience store’! And she should have been a little mad, considering that this book was practically a historical document and should be treated with respect, but then she thought about all the notes she used to write and doodle on her science books in college. This was no different.

… Man, there was a lot here, though. The Hide-Behind, a Gremoblin, the floating eyeballs from the cave, and pages full of sketches of the landscape and forests of Gravity Falls. So many creatures, so little time. The kids were getting better at finding them in the wild, though. Even if it often led to disastrous consequences. Another page turned slowly, expecting more bug-eyed weirdos and mountain dwelling spooks, when she came across—

Bill.

Jess paused. Bill Cipher was in the Journal. And it wasn’t in a good light.

He was illustrated as a silhouette of black ink, staring from the page with his singular eye. No lashes, no replicant of the shaky drawings and symbols from the cave. It was him. That eerie posture of his low-hanging arms and relaxed, slightly kicked legs was caught perfectly. Various codes and patterns surrounded him, written down in rushes only to be crossed out again. CAESER. ATBASH. Some codes weren’t even letters or recognisable sigils, but some kind of bizarre alien text of lines and dots - part hieroglyphics, part morse-code, all of it impossible to read.

But there were splatters of red in the corners, and it wasn’t ink. And a paragraph of notes and praise, beautifully written in cursive. Bill has proven himself to be one of the friendliest and most trustworthy individuals that I’ve ever encountered in my life. On and on, thankful and adoring, and not unlike Jessica’s own thought process. But it was all crossed out, stubborn and hurt, and there was a bold, terrifying series of four-words amongst the stains.

BILL CAN’T BE TRUSTED!

She swallowed thickly. Kiara would have loved this guy. Beware Bill. The most powerful and dangerous creature I’ve ever encountered.

It was wrong. The Author was wrong. He had to be. Her fingers pressed into the ruby bindings of the book, and she read the following page. An illustration of the small triangle, in more detail and accuracy, hopping into a barely detailed human brain. It was labelled with several, scientifically accurate parts. REFLECTIVES, said one third. DOMESTIC, said another. THE LADIES, marked the last.

… Maybe the guy was just a lonely kook. Jess looked up from the Journal with a deadpan expression. So the Author was a deranged horn-dog. Fine. The book closed, a little harder than necessary, and she tucked it just underneath Dipper’s pillow for safe-keeping. No wonder the boy seemed to enjoy his writing. But so what? There was plenty here that was incorrect. He was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

Bill was fine. She had magic powers. And they talked all the time. They were fine, they were great, they were friends. The corn-chip would have told her of any further intentions. She was smarter than this deranged lunatic and his coded notes. Jess asked questions. Jess read details. Or, alternatively, she asked questions and he would shut her down and talk about a vague, larger plan, and she didn’t have the guts to ask him what that plan was so she just kept her mouth zipped and enjoy what she had. Enjoy the feeling of life in her veins and magic in her bones and becoming something larger, grander, better than just a failed little girl.

She gripped the sheets, and didn’t move until she was called back downstairs by KP. Jessica played along the whole week by the poolside, flirtatious and funny and blonde and sweet, laughing everything off. She continued to tease Kiara about her obvious feelings for Stanford Pines, as old as he was, and waved at Mabel and her sweet, hispanic (??) mermaid (?!?!?) boyfriend. She had nothing to worry about. Nothing.

Is he watching me? asked the book under Dipper’s pillow.

- - - - -

“So who else have you made deals with?” Jean asked some time ago, turning over in the air to see him.

Bill was sitting back, hands behind him as one would put them behind their head. He watched the sky roll lazily by. “OH, YOU KNOW. DA VINCI, THE KENNEDY’S, A COUPLE OF RUBES,” he listed casually. “I HAD FUN FILMING THE MOON-LANDING WITH NASA. THAT WAS PRETTY GREAT.”

Jess wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask about that yet. Whole new bag of worms to deal with. But she did ask this: “Have you ever given anybody your powers before?”

Bill paused. Interesting of her to ask. “NO,” he answered eventually. “HAVEN’T NEEDED TO! AND WHEN I FIGURED OUT I NEEDED TO, THERE WEREN’T PEOPLE IN TOWN WHO WERE WORTH SHARING THEM WITH!”

It had flattered her at the time. She used to spend a whole day of mischief with her favourite triangle. The minute she was out of earshot, sometimes sooner, Bill would appear in a crack of light by her side. The space around him shifting between this world and the Mindscape, as vibrant a yellow as ever. They’d exchange a knowing grin, and Jess would pick up her feet and turn her walk into a float. Both to show off her control over his magic, and because flying was the best thing in the world.

Jessica was getting good at learning his magic. Understanding where it came from. Bill didn’t delve too much into how he learned them - nobody wants to give away their backstory all at once and take away the fun. But she got it. Learn an equation, think of a grander universal concept, and either conjure it or remove it from existence entirely. All he’d given her that afternoon nap by the cave was just a spark for her body and brain to withstand it. Something to make her physically grander than the average twenty-five year-old cheerleader. She was a science-interested mind with an artist’s imagination. It was a good combo that worked in his favour, and appealing to boot. He needed that for the long-term plans. And for the short-term, she was damn fine fun.

They still spend nights together. It was harder to see her during the day, and she needed him less and less to talk through her abilities. Between fun-fairs, pig adoption, swimming pools, and sunsets on the porch chopping firewood, Bill Cipher wasn’t bothering to visit as often as he used to. They had dreams and the Mindscape to talk, to unwind, to catch up and explore the valleys and peaks of her imagination’s hillsides. And he didn’t want to sit in on those long hours of playing make-up and detective and helping the kids making videos for their stupid little channels. So he stuck right out of that, folded his arms, and waited for his friend to fall asleep and finally give him some time.

It was irritating. He was irritated, and she was aware of that, and now there were blood-splattered pages in a very old book with his name written between warning signs.

Technically speaking, spending time with the kids and making dumb videos was still practicing her powers. Bill couldn’t get too mad at Jean for spending more and more time with them. Right? Right. Even so, the girl had to make it up to him. So she picked a night and used the building blocks of her mind and imagination to create something just for them. No twins, no Kiara, nothing. Just her and Bill. She owed him that, at least.

Jessica was about half an hour into her sleep when he appeared. Deep blue night skies, slender purple and indigo trees. The usual level of whimsy, and those same white silhouettes of faceless starlight walking past them. But those eager silhouettes seemed to be vanished, or gather somewhere else. Bill Cipher was a contrast of yellow - not a soft gold but rather the ink in your printer that always seemed to vanish at inconvenient times - and appeared in a burst of white light. On the cliffside, outside the memory of ‘his’ cave, looking over towards the lake. A haze of pink and peach lights, made from only the kind of old-fashioned bulbs around movie-star frames and… carnivals.

He squinted, flying down closer to the sight. The closer he flew, the louder it became. Happy giggles, old music from the 50’s, and rickety wooden structures. Part of it resembled what Stan Pines created in his backyard in the name of self-promotion, the other parts looked like the seaside carnivals over in San Francisco or Coney Island. There was a large ferris wheel that nearly eclipsed the milky moon, with rose-coloured seats and plush cushions. There were games to play that won ugly, llama-looking plush toys with soft pink cheeks and bowties. The Kissing Booth was not occupied by Crescent, but rather a silhouette of white who had curves in the right places and a vaguely androgynous face. He ignored it. Nothing was rigged, everyone was a winner, and there was a distinct perfume in the air of fairy-floss and caramel. It was charming in a very mortal, young-love kind of way.

The girl had worked incredibly hard on it. Even down to the harlequin-styled clown, juggling on a small stage and dropping all his rainbow-coloured balls into his face. Bill cackled with nasal laughter amongst the imagined figures, and turned at the sound of ukulele. Jessica was performing as a busker, something she did to pass time and make money in college, and was dressed in a summer frock of white lace that sat like an attractive potato sack. It was pretty, as were the flowers in her hair. She was playing an old song that Cipher recalled her parents used to play on the kitchen radio, and when his eye found her she immediately stopped. Put the instrument down, float above the crowd, just make him the center of her world again.

She tucked a hair behind her ear, relaxing her legs and standing on the ground once more. “Sooo… you found the place!”

Bill chuckled. “HARD TO MISS IT,” he said/exclaimed. He always spoke so loudly. One of his hands reached for his top-hat, and he lifted it in respect. “NOT BAD, CRESCENT. NOT BAD AT ALL. CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THIS WHEN YOU’RE AWAKE!”

Jess wandered along, the bystanders of white parting from their way. It was hard to tell how much control she had over them sometimes, but the girl didn’t mind a crowded room. It was exciting. Especially in the dusk-coloured party lights and atmosphere of this little fairytale. She wanted to make him happy, show off how much she could do, and it was certainly fun to expand things further and further. “Well, y’know, I feel bad that I spent so much time with the kids lately… Running around with them is fun and all, but I would have liked to spend some of the day with my other friend.”

He heard the good intentions in her voice. She really meant it. The triangle chuckled, flattered and floating, and they made their way to the ferris wheel. She clicked her fingers and a pair of champagne glasses appeared just within their reach, taking gentle sips in unison as the sparkling attendant set them inside the comfortable, cozy ride. Bill’s eye shut, and he drank through the lids as one would a mouth, only to open them again as that frightening slit pupil. It made Jess giggle.

“SO WHAT’S THE OCCASION?” he asked, sitting down with a little wriggle of comedic effect. Jess ignored him, leaning back into the cozy pink pillows. She could make her ferris wheel as pretty and unsafe as she’d like. But Bill wasn’t giving up. “CHAMPAGNE? WEARING SOMETHING OTHER THAN THOSE FILTHY PYJAMAS? AN ENTIRE CARNIVAL BY THE SEA? YOU’RE INDULGING ME HERE, KID!”

Jessica nibbled her lip when she spoke. Her knees crossed over, she watched the bubbles in the gold drink. “Well… I guess I wanted to say thanks, too. I mean, you’ve taught me so much. I wanted to show you I—“

“CRESCENT.”

His voice was sharp. Bill’s eye was on her, and her only. “I KNOW WHAT YOU READ.”

The wheel began to turn, and they rotated up, gently, into the deep blue sky of night. Despite the light pollution of the sideshow, the stars remained ever-bright. Logic was second-thought in the Mindscape. The world could be as beautiful or as ugly as Jessica’s dreams and emotions dictated. And right now, it was beautiful. For him. And she was making herself dainty and small and sweet. She was nervous. And she was overcompensating with big gifts, gestures of affection, exploring her powers as much as possible to push back the fact that, finally, she had found something that shook her faith in the inter-dimensional being.

The blonde watched the view of deep blue sea and endless horizon. The pink and yellow lights of the fair glowed beneath their feet. “… KP’s always said I should be careful around you,” she began. “But she says that about all my friends and relationships.” Bless that sweet, honest girl. A small smile tugged briefly. “… We both know I have shit in my life that I don’t want to deal with. And I figured… that you were the same. You never asked me about my history, so I never pried too deep into yours. But…”

Jessica swallowed. “You knew the Author. And something happened between you guys that turned a good friendship bad.” Those blue eyes kept dancing, taking nervous glances at the triangle as she considered her words. “And the cave paintings, and the cipher wheel, and… You’ve told me so much about the world, Bill, and I am amazed. But I know nothing about you…! I barely know what you gave me these powers for in the first place!!”

“YOU KNOW WHY!” he said, a laugh to his voice. He set the champagne glass on an imaginary table, and it floated perfectly in the air beside him. “YOU’RE A BRIGHT KID, WITH A LOT OF IMAGINATION, AND IT—“

“Bill, no, I…” She bit her lip. The interruption made her blink. Jean gave a sigh, gentle but clearly pent-up, like the steam from a kettle. “Give me something… real. You gave me these for a reason. And you still haven’t told me what that reason is. I’m too polite to ask what your intentions are, but if you don’t want me using them for fun with my friends, and you don’t want me performing onstage, then you have to tell me what this whole thing is about.”

She didn’t even sound angry anymore. Just a bit stressed, a bit desperate, and finally snapping a little. Jess was a straight-shooter when she was serious. It was rare, but she could be. He was wondering whenabouts she’d finally pop the question. And her nerves were turning from quiet and unspoken to loud, and straight-forward, and determined. Enough games. Enough mindless flattery. She was asking for some truth. Bill sighed in a defeated manner. He couldn’t avoid this topic. “SO YOU WANNA HEAR IT? THE TRAGIC TALE OF BILL THE TRIANGLE GUY?”

Jessica Jean nodded. She leaned back in the seat as the ferris-wheel took them higher. A vision of white among the blue and pink of her little universe. His stiff three sides relaxed a little, almost wilting or melting, and Cipher’s eyelid grew heavy. “I’M FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION. NOT THE MINDSCAPE, NOT YOURS, ANOTHER PLACE. IT WAS A BORING LITTLE BLACK AND WHITE SPACE WITH SIMPLE-MINDED PEOPLE. OTHER SHAPES. OTHER TRIANGLES. BUT I KNEW I WAS ALWAYS ONE OF A KIND! SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE SQUARE! GOOD OL’ BILL CIPHER! A CUT ABOVE THE REST!

“I KNEW I WAS TOO GOOD FOR THE WORLD. I HAD TO FIND A WAY OUT. I STARTED LOOKING UP THINGS I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO, AND IT MADE ME A SMARTER EQUILATERAL. SOON, I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE MY WORLD ENTIRELY. I CAME TO YOUR THIRD DIMENSION AND TRIED TO SHOW THE PEOPLE WHAT I WAS CAPABLE OF, BUT THEY DIDN’T LIKE ME AT ALL! ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS BANISH ME.“

“I saw,” she said. Jess curled up her knees, moving closer to his side. “The murals on cave… The red lightning?”

“THAT’S THE ONE,” said Bill. He couldn’t look at her. How could he? Why should he? He was so lowly and she was so sweet. He sighed. The half-humoured tone to his story began to fade. Even when his voice was so loud, so nasal, Cipher just sounded so sad. He practically lost his glow. “I’VE BEEN TRAPPED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS. I WATCHED SO MUCH OF THE WORLD COME AND GO, AND I WANTED TO BE PART OF IT SO BADLY! I MANAGED TO HELP A FEW PEOPLE CHANGE HISTORY. MAKE AN IMPACT. GIVE MY LIFE A LITTLE MEANING. BUT IT’S NEVER BEEN ENOUGH. I’VE… I’VE NEVER BEEN ENOUGH.”

Jessica swallowed. She knew that feeling. Not to his cosmic extent. But she knew it. The triangle continued to explain himself and his slit pupil met her blue eyes. “THE AUTHOR OF THE JOURNALS FOUND ME, AND DEMANDED I TELL HIM ALL THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. I SHARED WHAT I COULD, BUT IT DROVE HIM MAD WITH POWER. THE POOR GUY LOST HIS SANITY COMPLETELY.” He looked at her with what was the equivalent of a hopeful smile. An air of warmth resonated between them in the starry sky. “BUT YOU? … YOU’RE THE FIRST PERSON I’VE EVER GIVEN MY POWERS TO. YOU’RE A GOOD EGG. A SMART KID. SMART ENOUGH TO LEARN HOW IT WORKS, BUT FUN ENOUGH TO TAKE IT TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL! YOU ARE EXACTLY WHAT I NEED.”

She was quiet the whole while, taking in his story and hanging onto every word. But Jess had to ask, directly, “And what do you need? What do you need me to be?”

Cipher looked at her with his big, adoring eye. It was shiny against the starlight. He was yellow against the purple and blue of her mind. It crinkled in the corners, in his version of a mouthless smile. “I NEED YOU TO BE MY ACE IN THE HOLE IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG. I’VE GOT A PLAN TO COME OUT THERE, IN YOUR WORLD. IT’S READY FOR ME. BUT IF SOMETHING GOES HAYWIRE, YOU’RE MY BACK-UP. I NEED YOU TO KEEP PRACTICING WHAT I TEACH YA, AND I NEED YOU AT BECK AND CALL WHEN THOSE BIG PLANS PAY OFF.” He sounded a little nervous. A glance up and down at her. “CAN YOU DO THAT FOR ME, CRESCENT?”

By contract, she couldn’t say no. But he pretended that she could. And Jess believed it. She believed it all, as he expected her to do. She smiled, warm and tender, and edged a little closer to him. And before Bill knew it, she did something pretty unexpected. She hugged him. Arms wrapped around his pointy frame. Altogether, he was about as tall as her torso - a perfect size to get wrapped up in as she lay back in their booth.

“I can do that,” she answered quietly. “… you weird asshole.”

She heard a chuckle. It was limp, compared to his louder natural laugh. Heck, Cipher was kind of surprised that she was holding him in the first place. Aside from sex with near strangers and grabbing KP whenever possible, Jessica Jean didn’t have a track record of physical attention. It made her squeamish. If she hugged him, it meant she really liked him.

Good.

“WHAT WAS THAT CUTE LITTLE NUMBER YOU WERE SINGING EARLIER?” he asked, finishing the champagne. He still flashed gold light with each syllable he spoke.

Jess shrugged. “It’s something my Mom sang to me before the divorce.”

And she’d hold her like this, too. The same way she held Bill now. He felt her clutch him a little tighter, a little closer, just subconsciously. He reclined in her arms as best as he could. “I’VE HEARD IT SOMEWHERE BEFORE. WANNA SING IT AGAIN FOR ME?”

Crescent smiled. “Sure!”

They stared into the blue, quiet and still, and talked about the endlessness yet contained beauty of the universe. Eager questions about the past and future, venting about her previous relationships and friends, and drinking champagne. The wheel stopped with them right at the top, looking over the world they shared together. Her eyelids grew heavy even within the dream, relaxed into a complete state of bliss. Her fingertips traced the flat, two-dimensional edge of his body, and he didn’t protest to it.

J.F. Kennedy didn’t cuddle. Neither did Lovecraft. Bill didn’t really have many female humans as contracts or friends. Still getting used to some aspects of it. And hugging seemed to be one of them. It was sweet. Not his preferred thing, but it was new. And new things were always intriguing. Jessica Jean, lying back amongst pillows and pointing out constellations in her mind’s sky, held him in her arms. It was difficult to, given he was a being of pure energy and weightlessness, but she tried. And the effort was enough.

The song ended slowly, gently. “You know what?” she said, looking out onto the wide blue ocean. It went for miles. The edge of her mind. They looked at the limitless blue and she squeezed him tighter. It was hard to, but the effort was enough. “I can’t wait for you to come out of this place… I’ll actually be able to hug you for real!”

Bill groaned dramatically. “YEAH, YEAH, I CAN HARDLY WAIT.” And the sarcasm made her laugh enough to spill some champagne.

- - - - -

KP and Jessica were usually the ones in charge of grocery runs. Stanford’s parenting skills were getting better, but it seemed like his cooking always relied on beans and war rations. Not that they were culinary experts or anything, but college life and learning to live on your own meant you picked up a couple things like easy-bake pasta recipes, steaks, eggs, anything that required minimal ingredients and as many healthy things as they could fit. Plus, being a young(er) adult meant they could respect the kids’ needs for brightly coloured cereal, sugar, and fruit juice spelt with numbers for letters.

“Honestly, this one is just an exclamation mark!” said KP, pulling it off the shelf. The bottle was about as big as Manly Dan’s arm, and coloured like a neon pink sign at a video arcade. She grinned. “Is Mabel gonna make her juice again?”

Jess nodded. “Yup. Prepare your liver.”

The car ride back from the store was music, good times, big smiles, and a backseat full of groceries. Loud rock music from the 50’s mixed with trap from last week. It was an eclectic mess of music tastes, which is what the blonde seemed to enjoy most. Every speed-bump made the beetle shake, but the stops and sights on the way to Gopher Road were becoming more and more familiar. Kiara smiled out the window, even at the sight of the massive white and blue tent of the Gleeful family. This strange little town felt more like home every day. Sunshine on her skin when she leaned on the window. Her shirt’s long black sleeves felt toasty warm in the light.

She smiled at the driver. “Could you live here?”

It had certainly come out of nowhere. As did the smile from Tad Strange, crossing past them at the intersection and holding hands with his boyfriend. Jess waved back, awkward but flattered smirk on her face, and turned to her not-girlfriend. “Why’d you ask?”

“I dunno…!” replied KP. In fact, it had surprised herself a little. But just being lost in thought in the golden taste of sunlight had sent her off to somewhere dream-like and strange. She imagined the clouds parting and the shining light against her right cheek like a little kiss. “Lately I’ve just been thinking, y’know… settling down, finding somewhere nice and quiet to work on my comics…” She turned to Jessica with a nervous but hopeful expression. “Once the Summer’s up and the kids are on the bus to California, I might even look into real estate here!”

“Aww…!” Jess was quiet but proud. “That’s great!” Planning the future was never her forte. She survived as much as she could in the present. Anything like a career or a marriage was far, far away from her priorities. “What are you thinking, an apartment…? Or a cute little cottage house somewhere like Wendy’s place or the Shack…?

KP smiled. “Yeah, the Shack is perfect!”

“Yeah… Rustic, charming, full of weird taxidermy…!” “Ha-ha, yeah! Perfect woodland get-away—“

“Hotter older gentleman waiting for you every night…” purred Jess.

Kiara Lee Phoenix frowned at the blonde. This was not a road she wished to bring up. Again. “Not a day goes by where y’don’t remind me of this stupid crush, do you?”

“IT’S ADORABLE!” squealed Jess behind the wheel. Also, talking about the feelings between Stanford Pines and her best friend was a nice distraction from thinking about the inevitable death of her childhood and having to become an independent person. Taking a left turn and finding the familiar path for Gopher Road, she tried to talk while paying full attention. It was difficult. “Honestly, sweetheart, it had been years since I last saw you get a crush this bad!!”

The brunette made a loud, ugly groan of embarrassing noise and hardship. Easy for her friend to say, but it was hard to carry the feeling. “Please stop!! It’s… it’s weird. He’s so much older but he’s so handsome and he really cares about the kids!!” Her experience with boys was awful. With men? Even worse. KP didn’t know how to handle the emotional need in her body. She itched for the comforting headphones around her neck. She sighed, defeated, and hugged herself instead. “Look, what do you reckon?”

“I’ve told you what I reckon!” laughed Jess. “It’s adorable. You’re adorable.”

“Be serious,” said KP, in a rather miserable tone. “Just tell me, is this weird or not? I’m trying to shut off my feelings for the guy but… I can’t. And I know he’s kinda rough, and not the most aware, but he really does the best he can, and…” She was so tired from feeling it. Why did they have to talk about it? Why did she have to feel it?! Kiara looked to Jess for guidance. “Just give it to me straight.”

“… KP, you know I’m bi, I can’t give things straight—“

“Shut your beautiful mouth and be serious, darn it!”

It started off with giggles, but Jess would get to the point in a minute. She made the proper turn and headed up the long, dirt lane of Gopher Road. With a little bit of magic she turned down the radio as a sign of ‘serious conversation ahead’. “Okay, okay…” She racked her brain for good points. Good points about the law-avoiding ex-boxer who somehow managed to make his own business in dealing lies to suckers. “… He’s funny. And yeah, he’s getting better around the kids… Personally, I like my guys a little fitter, and a little nerdier, but y’know, that’s just me!

“The age… isn’t that much of an issue these days. Big gaps are gross when you’re like, in high school and some creepy 30-year-old man asks you about your cup size when you’re sixteen. That’s fucked up. But as you start getting older and a little wiser, people start to blur across generations…! Love is just a concept of hormones and biological urges, anyway, so who cares about how old, or fat, or queer, or how different each of the people involved are as long as they’re consenting and honest to each other!” Jessica’s serious talks always seemed to delve into social or scientific issues. She tried to make it more personal and not just a vent. “You always talk about finding a guy who wants a family, who’s gonna treat you like a real classy lady, and boys our age usually don’t give a shit about that…”

KP nodded with a bitter sigh. Too true. It was why Jess had so much care-free luck in sex and why she’d had so little. The blonde was fleeting and lived on the physical drive that was easier to come by - Kiara wanted something more… mature. They both watched the trees go by as she drove onward. “So… It’s fine that I have the hots for a sixty-three year-old man?”

Jessica snorted. “Sweetie, if you don’t judge me for being a sexually active queer girl, I will not judge you for having a crush on a nice older gentleman who, according to you, is trying really hard to be a good guy.”

She smiled, cheeks flushed with a tint of pink. And it wasn’t the sunshine on her skin. Kiara adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “Thanks, sweetheart…” she mumbled, quiet and thinking things over. They drove in the silence for a little while, looking at the road ahead and the slowly-appearing rooftop of their favourite tourist trap. Finally, she came to a lightbulb moment. “Hey, I just realised! You haven't got any action this whole trip!”

“I know, right?!” “How are you handling being single and constantly horny in a town full of nice family folk?” Jessica’s face lit up in a big, movie-star grin. “It’s killing me inside like you wouldn’t believe!”

She was about to rant about her last sexual encounter being a disappointing boy at a nightclub a year and a half ago, but a cop car was speeding right past them and heading towards the Mystery Shack. Blubs and Durland were on the case. The case of something. The two girls exchanged a look of concern, silently prayed the Stan wasn’t in trouble with the law again, and hit the gas a little harder. Something was wrong.

The ‘wrong’ was more mumbo-jumbo weirdness in Mabel and Dipper’s lives. They had left that morning with the twins fighting over having to share a room (which disheartened KP, but honestly it was bound to happen at some point) and now seemed to escalate to secret rooms (which excited Jess, but honestly it was bound to happen at some point.) Somehow the kids had gotten mixed up with a turquoise-coloured, incredibly fuzzy throw-rug with bizarre scientific abilities. The experiment gone wrong had just been lying dormant in the dusty ruins hidden in the Shack, and now was leading to absolute chaos. The house had about five people too many and a screaming, terrified pig. Candy, Grenda, the two-person squad, and—

McGucket. Jess cringed. Not that weirdo. This madness was coming to a gentle end, bit by bit, and whatever was a mess seemed to be sorting itself out. The carpet of mind-switching atomic power was putting everybody back into their own bodies. The girls had caught the tail of it, with Dipper and Mabel trying to organise everybody back into their own bodies. Apparently these lunatics had been jumping and out of each other all day via electric shocks. Sorting one at a time was a lot harder than it sounds, especially when Deputy Derland was crying and shaking in the body of a small Vietnamese girl.

“Pffftt,” muttered Candy’s sweet voice inside of pig’s body. “It’s not that bad.”

But eventually, it was done. Required a lot of organisation and KP demanding everybody split into two groups, those comfy in their own skin and those trapped in somebody else’s, and trying to convince Jess not to be an asshole and shock her ‘for fun’. Everybody became adjusted, the carpet was avoided as much as possible, and even Soos managed to stay out of Waddles. More or less.

The boy looked himself over, trying to get the taste of wooden door-chips out of his mouth. “Oh, no, I changed back!” he assured the Pines twins. He gave a glance down at his belly and the dirt on his hands. “At least I think I did.”

“I’ll still eat ya…!” muttered a starved, shivering hillbilly behind him.

The knife and fork in McGucket’s hands were terrifying. As was the threat of cannibalism. Jessica squirmed. ‘Old Man’ McGucket always made her squeemish. Like some awful mess between a tragic story of homelessness and a genuinely off-putting, unappealing ease in his awkward, clumsy behaviour. That, and he built giant robots to take out his enemies. Shady. Dipper and Mabel pushed him out as far as they could, trying to get rid of him as respectfully as possible, but it was the blonde who ended up taking him by the shoulders with gingerly fingers and leading him through the house. Of course. Just her luck.

The blue plaid wallpaper and old, rickety floors were becoming far too familiar at this point. Honestly, they spent more time in the Mystery Shack that at the hostel. She took a glance down at the old man. Long, dirty white beard. Big pickle nose, blushed and pimpled. Poor guy smelt like rotten beans. With the rest of the confused victims of ‘carpet diem’ following behind them, she tried to make polite conversation. “Don’t you have, like, a son you could bother or something?”

She caught a glimpse of that young man at the lake, anyway, but he seemed to be embarrassed of the inventor. “Maybe!” he laughed back. “Don’t rightly know, these days!!” What a kook. Jessica found herself a little lost, slowing down bit by bit as she tried to find her way in the labyrinth of rooms. Sometimes the house was more of a maze than a home. But McGucket pointed at a particular hallway. “Door’s that way, little lady!”

Jess frowned. A particularly correct hallway. “I know, I know…”

McGucket wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Has that pig always lived here?!”

“Mabel got him at a fun-fair, not that it’s any of your business.”

“You can win pigs at the fun-fair?!”

“Yeah, I…” Jess glanced at the living-room as they walked by. McGucket seemed to have his eyes set on the square-jawed, overweight uncle sitting in front of the TV. She snickered. “Were you talking about Grunkle Stan?”

“That’s a nice name for a pig!!”

Okay, she had to laugh at that. The hard push against his slack shoulders eased up just a bit. She was expecting her boss to yell at the two of them for poking fun, but he seemed pretty focused on cleaning a pair of glasses. Or maybe the episode of Baby Fights was particularly interesting. Whatever. She opened up the front door and shooed everybody out, a gentle hand waving away the two girls and the charming officers. Blubs began to give Grenda a proper talking to about ‘excessive giggling’. The sky was peach with the setting sun. Pink seemed to be the colour of Jessica’s summer nights these days. It was a nice view.

She looked down to her left. McGucket was watching the sky, too. Even through his cross-eyed pupils and hundred-yard stare. She would have thought it was sweet if not for the overwhelming stench of raccoons, rusty tin, and unwashed clothing.

Oh, to hell with it. The guy hadn’t eaten and was clearly homeless. Apparently McGucket slept in the Gravity Falls junkyard - he couldn’t help that he was as unstable as a rowboat in a storm, and was probably too crazy to remember this, anyway. Jess pulled a crisp fifty-dollar note from the inside of her bare palm, and held it out to the old man. He blinked at it.

She winced. “Please just take it.”

“What for?” he asked. His voice was still as twangy as banjo string.

She grimaced. “You haven’t eaten in a week and you smell like crap and I don’t want you in this house again, okay? Just take the money.”

It all came out a lot quicker and awkward than she’d anticipated. But the old guy didn’t seem to mind. Then again McGucket also had a bandaid on his beard and a cast for a wrist injury that had probably healed five years ago. He played with the note in his hands, stretching and twisting it about. He stood there, a little stunned, and Jess closed the door on him. Weirdo. The four kids were talking outside, trying to avoid the questions of the officers, and the house was finally quiet. Thank God. All that pig-screaming and running around in literal circles was getting to her. So much for a calm day getting groceries.

Jessica risked having a float, lifting up her feet and pocketing her hands in her overalls. Down the quiet hallways of old wood, save for the sound of crying children muffled in the lounge-room down the hallway. The static sound of the channels being flicked through one by one gave the house some white noise to it. It was nice. Cozy. Along with the gentle sounds of soft voices, understanding and anxious tones, that she only recognised as that of her best friend. She ducked in her head to find Kiara and Stanford there, changing channels. The eye-wear in his hand was practically squeaky clean, but the guy wouldn’t stop polishing it. KP had the remote and seemed to be finding something on the telly.

They were shaped kind of different from the ones he usually wore. She nodded towards them, and got to her feet pronto before their boss could recognise them. “Cool glasses.” He pocketed them in the striped boxer shorts, and grumbled something incoherent. She tried more conversation. “… They new?”

“Old,” answered the man gruffly. He reclined back in his vomit-coloured chair. This house had furniture from so many decades it was getting ridiculous. But nothing beat the old chair and the stone walls of the living room. He ignored her for a moment, and looked up at the better babysitter. “You gonna join in on this rerun or leave the mystery to me?”

KP laughed a little too loudly. “U-Uh… yeah! Sure!” And while there was room on the massive arms of the chair, she picked the soft and worn-out lounge to lie back on. A safe distance from Stanford and hopefully enough for him to forget the blush that was spreading to her face. Jess smiled internally. Girl had it bad.

Stan noticed the staring. He glanced at Jess up and down, and hiked a thumb towards the stairwell. He wasn’t going to have her standing around being a millennial nightmare when she could’ve been put to some good work. Especially when the ‘suck up’ contest was at an end and he could no longer abuse the fine line between ‘child labour’ and ‘time with the kids’. “Goldilocks, go clean up the new room for Dipper tonight, will ya?”

Her face caved. “Why me?”

“Because the kids have worked all day, Soos is being weird, and KP and I are watching TV. Get to it.”

The past week, she’d spent plenty of time being nice and doing favours for other people. Buying a video camera for the kids, making a spectacular carnival for herself and Bill to play in, and creating money from thin air to feed a weird old guy who married something that he found in a dumpster. Maybe the good-deeds energy from it was still in effect, or maybe the fact that KP and Stanford could have some time alone together was reason enough to do it. Jessica pretended to whine and get under Stan’s skin. Arms folded, leaning over to try and see the blurred screen, big pomp and fuss with her chest stuck out defensively. Play up and act like the clown. But when she left, Jess gave the slightest wink to KP. Those two could have some fun, even if was at an arm’s distance apart.

Kiara glanced nervously between the television screen and Stanford Pines. It was an ad-break, and she was trying to find something to talk about other than the massive, quiet, ink-blot of tension and romantic interest. “So…” she tried. “Th-the room’s going to Dipper then?”

Stan gave a shrug. “Yeah, let the nerd have it! It suits him.” He cleared his throat a little, reclining back on the couch and putting his hands behind his head. “I was gonna give it to you two girls, but I figured life at the hostel seemed pretty fun. Didn’t wanna, uh… cramp your style or anything.”

KP scoffed. “Yeah, it’s fun if you enjoy unwashed dishes, termites, and listening to people have loud sex at three in the morning…!”

“Ha!” The old man chuckled and turned to the young woman at his side. The re-run of Ducktective seemed to be less important. “Yeah you’re right. A pretty thing like you must be smothered with attention from all the guys there.”

Kiara could have swallowed her tongue as the red blush claimed her face.

The room was found by Soos that very morning. He’d decided, on his own love for the place and because Mr Mystery told him to, to clean up the boxes in the storage area. The towers of cardboard were greying, some soggy, all of them covered in specks of dust and mildew. They were sealed clumsily by Stanford with duct-tape and remained unopened. The guy had done as best as he could to organise them, but being unable to see what was inside it was more about vacuuming and dusting the piles already there. But he’d moved around enough to reveal a door, traditionally carved from redwood and resembling faintly of a Swedish get-away. Painted with green, yellow and blue floral accents amongst the deep rouge tones. This whole house was designed with bits and bobs from different styles, but this room was by far the strangest. When they’d asked Stan what the hell he’d locked it away for, apparently it was just easier to shut off the previous owner’s junk entirely than try to sort through and figure out what to sell. Lazybones.

It was caked in dust, save for where the kids had been running around. The first thing Jess did was roll up that chaotic piece of carpeting, not even touching the weird old thing but rather curling it up with her mind. The heavy piece of blue and gold shag helped prop the door open and let the room breathe a little more. The tag of Experiment 78 stuck out in a faded silver label. The square underneath was that perfect shape of dust-free space, and the greyed wooden floor was nearly white from being beneath the rug all these years. It had a stronger scotch and masculine smell, like Stan’s office, but it was fainter with the sands of time and smelt less of sweaty laundry. The guy really hadn’t touched it for a while.

Flying made things easier. As did summoning a dusting brush and a vacuum cleaner when she needed one. That way she could get rid of all the creepy cobwebs up in the hard-to-reach corners. Way easier to do now than when Jess was just a five-foot rocket without any fuel. She took in the room’s ambience while she was up there - this 70’s-designed hide-away of red asymmetrical furniture, low knee-high cabinets, and a small, stained-glass window with pink and orange squares. It filled the room with roses, the blue throw-pillows and yellow lamps being little spots of contrast to the colour. It was sweet. Very nicely designed. The rest of the Shack seemed to be mismatched with a memory of the original log-cabin, retro vibe. Stanford had renovated the place time and time again to make his home into a Mystery Shack. The Mystery Shack. But this place? It was untouched.

She pulled down the blue sheet that was hung open over a fold-away mirror. Somebody didn’t want to be seen, but it sure as hell wasn’t Jess. With a little turn and pose, twirling the duster between her fingers and checking out her own curves, she spotted little glass pyramids lined up on a shelf behind her. After a brief clean-up came a chance to play, and she lifted them up in the pink light of the room, reflecting rainbows across the walls and mirrors. A laugh escaped into the quiet. This room seemed to have plenty of knick-knacks - the calendar on the wall was stuck on a picture of a very fierce-looking owl (marked with the fourth of July, 1982), a trophy for a valedictorian, and a framed portrait of a short-haired, bushy-browed young lady who looked a lot like Mary Shelly.

Jess squinted. “… Fuck, I think that is Mary Shelly.”

Books, lamps, and retro clock on top of a blocked-up fireplace. She broke her foot roughly through the boards and vacuumed old ash. A lot of notes had been burned there. And there were stacks and stacks of papers all around. The shelves were full of old-school scoff novels and first editions. Some were guilty pleasure pulp types, and others hardback copies of famous theories and nonfiction collections. This room was… kind of awesome. Jessica was more of a 1960’s, psychedelic, free-love and flower-crowns soul to her trashy 90’s aesthetic, but she really did like the touch of modern 70’s here and there. No wonder Dipper and Mabel fought for it. If she had her say, she’d have been knocking them out for the key, too.

She adjusted the round, yellow lampshade until her feminine standards of ‘tidy’ were met. It was a shame this place was about to smell like unwashed jocks, and not the charming shelf of whiskies and scotch. It was a real shame of Stan to keep this place hidden for so long. But it was understandable. After all, this place was nothing like him. Nothing like Stanford Pines at all.

#gravity falls #gravity falls oc #gravity falls ocs #stanley pines #stanford pines #dipper pines #bill cipher #jessica jean #theory of the falls #totf chapters #AND ONCE AGAIN I WROTE A CHAPTER THAT'S LIKE 10K AND I'M REALLY SORRY #thank you again for reading and enjoying!!!!

4 notes · View notes

mastcomm · 4 years

Text

Where Broadway Fans Wear the Crowns and the Tentacles

On any other weekend, a gaggle of teenagers belting songs from “Hadestown” in the hallway of the New York Hilton Midtown would raise some eyebrows.

But for three days that ended Sunday, they were in the right place. More than 5,000 others — including several Beetlejuices, a handful of Heathers and the rare Dolly — made the pilgrimage to New York for the fifth annual BroadwayCon, a haven for the most passionate musical theater fans.

Some arrived in full character for the event, where attendees can meet and take photos with the stars of their favorite shows. Passes range from $80 for one day to $1,000 for a full weekend platinum pass with extra perks.

When fans weren’t doing their own dramatic hallway renditions of musical numbers, here’s what they were up to.

Which witch will win?

For Nyssa Sara Lee, dressing up as Ursula — the evil sea witch from “The Little Mermaid” — wasn’t just about putting on a costume. It was a test of endurance.

What was it like to waltz through the convention in a 35-pound ensemble, hefting aloft a web of tentacles 15 1/2 feet wide?

Two words: “It hurts.”

“I almost passed out yesterday because I got super hot,” added the 26-year-old cosplayer from Salt Lake City. “If I’m running, or if I lift it up too much — I even have ice packs to put on my spine on the base of my neck, because it’s a workout.”

But the four months she spent creating the costume, and the physical hurdles it took to wear it, were worth the effort, she said. Cosplay — dressing up in character, a big component of fan conventions like BroadwayCon and others — brings her joy. Wowing other admirers doesn’t hurt, either. Nyssa Sara Lee (a name she uses on everything but legal documents, she said) strapped on the tentacles both Saturday and Sunday and spent much of the weekend posing for photos.

And Sunday afternoon was her chance to show it off on the main stage at the convention’s annual cosplay contest. The competition was tough: Nyssa Sara Lee was up against another Ursula, a tiny Angel Schunard from “Rent” and all four gods from “Once on this Island.”

A Deer Evan Hansen was also in the running — a centaur-esque play on “Dear Evan Hansen,” with the title character’s signature blue polo for a torso and a rear end of the woodland animal.

“I’m not in it to win it,” Nyssa Sara Lee said in an interview before the contest. “I would love the recognition. But my payout is literally just having people say, ‘Thank you for doing this.’”

The judges, including Fredi Walker-Browne of the original “Rent” cast, agreed. Nyssa Sara Lee took first place, winning a pass for next year’s BroadwayCon.

‘Six’ gets the royal treatment

The screams at BroadwayCon’s “Six” singalong weren’t typical theater cheers. This wasn’t the raucous standing ovation a cast gets on opening night. These were full Beyoncé-at-Coachella screams. The screams you hear when a queen of pop — or six — steps onstage before several hundred superfans.

“Six” doesn’t begin performances on Broadway for another month, but the girl-power British musical about the wives of Henry VIII had an outsize presence at the convention, including a dance workshop led by the show’s choreographer, Carrie-Anne Ingrouille.

Tanya Heath, 31, arrived on Saturday as Catherine of Aragon, wearing a black and gold dress a friend lent her for New Year’s Eve and a spiked crown she made at 2 a.m. that morning.

She was a royal army of one compared to the six high school seniors from New Jersey, who held a sleepover Friday night to finalize the outfits for their group cosplay. They became obsessed with the show thanks to its cast album.

“They have the lovability of a jukebox musical,” said Rachael Mishkind, the group’s Jane Seymour, “but with the originality of a regular Broadway show.”

Young women inspired by the show’s feminist message are at the heart of its fan base, but Aisling Kruger, the group’s Anna of Cleves, thinks the audience may be expanding.

“My dad’s really into British history,” she said. “He’ll hear it and be like, ‘Oh! Jane Seymour!’ and get really into it.”

All business at the swap

Jayda Lipstein, 15, knew she had a jewel in her hands, and she wasn’t going to part with it easily.

She was holding court with fellow Playbill collectors in a small conference room on Saturday afternoon. And her 2008 “In the Heights” program, featuring the full original Broadway cast listed inside, was in high demand.

One girl wanted to swap a “Come From Away” signed by the original cast. Another offered to throw in 20 bucks and a “Beetlejuice.” When that didn’t work, she upped the ante: How about her whole stack? A “Jersey Boys”? A “Mean Girls”?

Lipstein stood firm. But around her, sentimentality reigned. Jarod Engle, 19, was on the lookout for special colorful editions of the Playbill for “Beetlejuice,” a show he hasn’t seen yet. Brianna Boucher, 17, sitting in the fluffy pink tulle of her “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Veruca Salt costume, said she would trade anything for a “Bring It On,” a musical she loves but also never got to see.

Back at Lipstein’s table, Claudia Emanuele, a 21-year-old writer from Connecticut, joked that she would “trade you my whole soul” for the “In the Heights.” She shares a name with the musical’s treasured abuela character — and when Emanuele saw the show, she said, it marked the first time she heard her name pronounced correctly onstage.

In a room packed with fans who barter for nostalgia, Lipstein’s all-business mentality was an outlier.

As other collectors learned, to their chagrin, she doesn’t even have any emotional connection to “In the Heights.” She acquired the program by pure luck, hidden in a box in her grandparents’ basement.

“Everyone wants it,” she said, coolly appraising the room. She concluded that she might be better off just selling it to the highest bidder on eBay.

‘Mary Paw-Pins’ and more

Amid the Playbill handbags, the crocheted Broadway character dolls, the paintings on sheet music and the pink-painted “Mean Girl” shoes, there was Melissa Crabtree, at a table lined with cats.

Not “Cats,” the show, but images of her own gray-striped cat, Mabel, turned into souvenirs that commemorate a whole array of Broadway shows.

It was Crabtree’s first time in New York, and her first time at BroadwayCon — where the maze of vendor booths stretched across two floors.

At Crabtree’s table, there were stickers of cats dressed as characters from “Hamilton” and “Hadestown.” Enamel pins depicting stage manager cats with tiny feline headsets. Miniature buttons with frazzled cats announcing a dire warning: “It’s tech week.”

Mabel “doesn’t let me dress her up,” Crabtree said. Instead, she started illustrating a round, cartoon Mabel, happily clad in Broadway costumes. Mabel appears as all six wives of Henry VIII from “Six” and dons the flowery island garb of “Once on This Island.” There are even Lighting Crew Mabel and Sound Crew Mabel, who each sport an ensemble fit for running the show behind the scenes.

Crabtree, a Chicago-based actor, started drawing theater-centric stickers three years ago to put in her planner, and the shop grew from there, her husband, Jon, said. While she interacted with customers, he sat nearby, using a button maker to quickly craft reinforcements.

Every sticker set even has its own Mabel-inspired pun, from “Mary Paw-Pins” to “Licked” — pronounced, of course, with two syllables, like “Wicked.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/where-broadway-fans-wear-the-crowns-and-the-tentacles/

#Entertainment

0 notes

eregyrn-falls-art · 5 years

Photo

HAPPY SUMMERWEEN! from the Pines Crytpids! (click to embiggen)

This year’s Pines family group costume brought to you by: Cryptozoology, of course! The idea of Ford as Mothman came first, and Stan as the Jersey Devil was a must. The jackalope seemed like a good fit for Mabel -- sorry! Antelabbit! She of course knitted the tail to turn Waddles into a mer-pig. And finally, Dipper, ever the nerd, is representing the idea that there is a subgenre of thunderbird legends involving 19th century hoax photos of pterodactyls; which, as we know from The Land Before Swine, is not at hoax at all, in Gravity Falls.

I decided to do a more conventional horse-headed design for the Jersey Devil costume, so it would be recognizable. The Mothman costume’s details were inspired by a particularly impressive cosplay that went around recently. Dipper’s is based on the show’s pterodactyl design. And while I like jackalopes with pronghorn horns, I went with the more common deer antlers for Mabel’s costume, which is sort of supposed to be jackrabbit colors. (This was done in a combo of Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and some finishing touches in Photoshop.)

#gravity falls #stanford pines #stanley pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #summerween 2019 #summerween #my art #mothman #the jersey devil #jackalopes

775 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

thedivinevulpine

The Divine Vulpine: A Fox Fantasy Dating Sim

impairedsanctity

a-2207

amsterdam-locals-original-blog

AmsterdamLocals

angelwriter59

Terri G Jones