#and also very very real in my own cold deciduous forest

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

.

#hm. so the other day I was walking in the woods and saw an abandoned mini fridge #normally I hardly ever get seriously spooked by stuff #i genuinely can't think of the last time it happened #but it was a couple weeks after I finished reading noragami #and i didn't really feel anything beyond intense story-reading emotions then so I wasn't like. stewing in it #and like. it was a small fridge and the door was off so logically i knew nothing was wrong #but i felt kinda sick to my stomach anyway and I had to walk away quickly #it was like a weird leakage or something #because there's a lot that doesn't bug me in fiction the way it would irl (because it's fiction) #but the imagery was strong enough (which is good from an artistic standpoint) that seeing something that was extremely similar #and also very very real in my own cold deciduous forest #it made my brain kinda backtrack and go ''remember that? that was fine because it was fiction? it's real now.'' #''time to feel how you'd actually react to that. have fun'' #0/10 I'd much rather that never happened again #there's a reason I avoid most types of true crime in addition to the ethical issues

[6480n]

Looking for fellow creatives for a fantasy project!!

Hi all! I’m looking for other people who might be interested in collaborating on a hobby world-building project. !!Please help me find people by reblogging this post!!

[ID: Sketch of someone waving cheerfully at the viewer. end ID]

This world is designed to be the basis for a magic-based, multiplayer platformer fantasy game similar in ways to Maplestory and Fantasy Life, where the player character travels throughout various cool and magical realms. If you want to learn more about the world, please check out the information under the “read more” (I didn’t want the post to get too long).

Some stuff about me: I’m a Thai-American genetics student/researcher with heavy interests in evolutionary biology and Southeast Asian culture. I like to draw/design in my free time. I’m looking for people who are interested in contributing (to any degree), especially those who have an interest in biology, ecology, or sociology/anthropology. I would love to be able to work with other people from cultures that are underrepresented in the fantasy genre (though ofc not a requirement). No skills necessary!!! I'm able to handle all the art and visual design load on my own, I'm just looking for anyone imaginative!

I tend to be very realism-focused, so I’m hoping that input from others will help this world blossom into a more fantastical, wondrous setting. You don’t have to commit to anything--if you want, you can just hang around a bit and see if it interests you, or just provide input once in a while.

This is currently just a fun side-project that I work on in my spare time. I want to make it clear that even though I’m designing it with a videogame in mind, there really is no guarantee that it would ever get to that point, and I don’t want anyone to join with the hope that it would eventually pay off monetarily. I’ll make sure that anyone who contributes heavily will get a say in where the project eventually goes, if it turns out to last long.

Please contact me on Tumblr or Twitter to get involved! I plan on making a Discord server to keep all our collaboration in one place, invites given by PM.

[All images described in alt-text]

The premise of the world is that flora and fauna are not separate beings, but instead that all animals start their lives as plants, turn into animals, and then at death they create seeds which sprout into new plants. People also go through this life cycle--when they start out life they’re the huge, slow-growing plants that provide the structure for complex ecosystems (pine trees, kelp, huge cactuses), and then when they become people, their community cares for the ecosystem in question.

--MAIN GOALS--       - To build a work in the fantasy genre that rejects the overwhelmingly common eurocentric and often colonialist setting, as well as incredibly popular westernized systems of fantasy morality (light v. dark, demons v. angels, etc)       - To portray fictional cultures in a way that highlights the incredible diversity of IRL cultures without stereotypes or homogeneity       - To show the interconnectedness of everything, including showing different groups of humans as being connected with each other and showing humans as part of the environment; actively rejecting contemporary notions of “mastery over nature”

!!Everything below here is subject to change!!

Since I’m heavily interested in evolutionary bio, I built the biology of this world on the premise that life evolved much like it did on our world, starting from a single organism and blossoming out into different branches. Humans, or rather “people”, evolved multiple different times whenever a complex, dense ecosystem arose. Here are the groups of people I’ve come up with. The player chooses which species they want to start out as, and the dominant weapons or magic style of that culture determines the combat style they first learn to use. (Each group of people has multiple different subcultures, but there would be one “main” subculture that players start out in.)

Merfolk/seafolk:

Perhaps some of the earliest peoples, seafolk start their lives as kelp and inhabit the thick kelp forests that surround many coastlines. They have a love for exploration and discovery, but generally avoid encroaching on land. Their magic generally has to do with water, and the weapons they use are mechanical crossbows and heavy blunt weapons (blunt weapons integrated with controlling/redirecting the flow of water to lend force to blows). I haven’t figured out which real-world cultures to draw on for inspiration for seafolk societies, since nobody IRL lived underwater, of course. This is probably the most open-ended group of people. They’re visually based on fish and salamanders.

Frostfolk:

These people start their lives as conifers and thus inhabit the taiga and tundra. Their magic mostly has to do with ice, cold, or wind, and their main weapon of choice is spears. In this group of people, I want to have different societies: a nomadic hunting/fishing society, a nomadic pastoral society, and a more sedentary river/forest-based society. They’re based visually on dinosaurs, specifically theropods, with perhaps more bird-like features.

(No name yet):

Related to frostfolk but now geographically isolated from them, these people start their lives as cycads and live in the tropics, especially on chains of islands. Some subcultures would be highly seafaring, while some would be more sedentary and involved with metal-working and smithing. For the sedentary cultures, their magic would revolve around utilizing fire, and weaponry would be small blades made from obsidian. They are also based on theropods, but would have more vibrantly colored feathers like tropical birds.

Dustfolk:

Based on carnivorous mammals, mainly cats, foxes, and coyotes, these peoples start their lives as succulent plants like giant cacti. They inhabit the deserts and canyons of the world and live a largely nomadic life. Their magic has to do with wind/sandstorms, and their main combat styles are focused on hand-to-hand combat, utilizing claw or knuckle weaponry.

Plainsfolk/brushfolk(?):

These people start their lives as deciduous trees, generally as part of savannas, or sparse forests on mountainsides. They are based visually on ungulates, mainly deer/antelope, goats, and pigs/boars. I plan to have a semi-nomadic subculture in the dry savanna, a more sedentary agricultural society in the tropical savanna, and a mountainous society. Their weaponry would use a combination of sword and shield, and they would utilize light magic by way of reflective metal or glass.

(No name here either... they’re humans):

Finally, there would be a species of primate-based people that start their lives as broadleaf evergreen trees and inhabit the tropical jungles of the world. Many of their societies would be agricultural, with some fishing river-based cultures. Their magic would be related to monsoons and thunderstorms, especially lightning magic, and they would use long, thin blades for fighting.

---

In addition to the "main" cultures of the world, there would be many cultural centers where multiple peoples meet and trade food, goods, and technology. People will not be divided by nation borders or "species".

Currently, my idea is that combat is used to battle metaphorical representations of disease, malaise, generally bad and imbalanced things. I haven't developed this part of the storyline too much yet, I just know some thematic goals I might have.

In addition to combat (either physical or magical-based depending on the player's preference), players would be able to pursue a few different skills, like farming/breeding using a robust genetics system, tailoring/clothes-making, furniture/crafts-making, smithing, healing, cooking; as well as more "meta" hobbies like making maps and puzzles for other players to use.

Again, if you're interested in getting involved or have any questions, you can reach out to me here on Tumblr or on Twitter. If people do end up being interested, I'd like to make a small community on Discord to chat with! Edit: We do have a discord server now, you just have to ask to join!

#artists on tumblr #world building #fantasy #character building #speculative biology #brainstorming #game design #fantasy world #can't think of any other tags #ive never tried putting out a post like this before so i wonder how much of a long shot it is #spec bio #speculative evolution #ecology

[ladylynse]

Happy birthday, @paperhoodie! Here’s the final installment of Crossroads (GFxOtGW crossover). For everyone else, check out the awesome cover if you haven’t seen it! (Also, this is a long chapter so you might want to just read it on FF or the AO3.)

Part I: [FF | AO3] Mabel and Dipper have dealt with a demon before, so when they wind up lost in the woods and are given two choices by a creepy kid with a lantern, they make sure to pick the third option—but every choice has consequences, even when you don’t play by the rules.

Part II:  How much do you dare trust something that might not even be real?

Part III: [FF | AO3] If the world leads you in circles, are you lost, still learning to find your own way, or simply ending up where you need to be?

Something was digging into his back. Wirt groaned. Had he fallen out of bed? It was so cold.

Then he opened his eyes, stared at the bare branches encroaching on his vision in the dwindling forest light, and remembered.

He sat up and winced, running careful, probing fingers over the tender spots on his back. Nothing seemed to be bleeding, and he miraculously hadn’t broken his flashlight when he’d landed on it or lost his first aid kit coming through, but those were the only upsides. He knew this was the Unknown, that Ford’s portal had gotten that much right—he didn’t think he’d ever forget the feel of this place—but there was no sign of how he’d gotten here. And without a portal, he didn’t know how he’d get home even if he did manage to track down Mabel and Dipper.

Ford had wanted him to stay behind, had wanted him to keep the portal open—however he’d expected Wirt to do that—and now, without Wirt and his connection to the Unknown, to the Beast that resided within, his doorway home had collapsed.

Wirt climbed to his feet and looked around, not sure what signs of a dimensional portal looked like but hoping he’d recognize them when he saw them. If he saw them. Unfortunately, unless the portal was suddenly masquerading as a deciduous tree or hiding amongst the detritus on the forest floor, ready to activate whenever he returned with Mabel and Dipper, he was out of luck.

It was quiet here. There was the wind rustling in the leaves, the occasional creaking complaints of the trees, and his soft footfalls as he moved towards a spot of dark red that turned out to be his hat, but no scampering of small animals just out of sight. No rustling of feathers from birds above flitting to a different branch. No animal calls, no murmured conversation that might point him towards a trail or a town, no distant strains of music from a riverboat or anything else.

He hadn’t run into anyone else when he was last here with Mabel and Dipper, but he didn’t know why.

Maybe…maybe this was the place that wasn’t real.

Well.

Maybe this was the fabrication, at least. Falsehood made true. This might not be the real Unknown, but if it wasn’t, how had he wound up here in the first place? And why? If Ford’s portal had been working correctly, using his connection to the Unknown as much as his connection to the Beast, he shouldn’t end up in a false version of the Unknown. But while this place had seemed to have the right feel at first, the emptiness was…disquieting. Wrong, in a way that the Unknown had never been.

He wished he had some more supplies with him. Why hadn’t he at least packed something as simple as a compass? He’d never find this place again, even if he tried to mark it (piles of stones, cutting trees with a sharp rock, anything), especially once it got dark. It was dim enough now with a thick blanket of grey clouds overhead. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had to be closer to evening than afternoon.

If he couldn’t find some sort of shelter soon, he’d be spending the night out in the open again. Like last time.

Wirt swallowed, cast one last look around the place where he’d landed, and then headed off to find…something. Someone. A path, a person, a talking bluebird— Anything.

It was hard to hope when he felt entirely alone, and a lack of hope would only ensure he’d never leave this place again.

“I’ll find Mabel and Dipper,” he said to himself. “And then we’ll get out of here. We’ll beat the Beast, Bill Cipher, and whoever else tries to stop us.” He couldn’t keep the warble out of his voice, couldn’t quite convince himself. “We will,” he tried again, more fiercely. Then, quieter, “We have to.”

XXXXXXX

“This is all I could find for food,” Mabel said, dumping out a pile of acorns from her sweater onto the table in front of Dipper. They were holed up in the old house by the mill—the Woodsman’s house, Wirt had called it—and were trying to supplement the few canned goods they’d found with whatever the forest had to offer. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very much. At least, not when she went out. Dipper was better at that kind of thing. “We can eat these, right?”

“We need to shell them and soak them before we roast them,” Dipper said, “but we can eat them.”

“I feel sorry for the poor squirrel whose stash I stole,” Mabel said, “but until we can figure out how to get out of here….”

She didn’t finish.

She didn’t need to.

She was confident they would find a way out, but they hadn’t had much opportunity yet. After their fight with not-Wirt—the Beast—they’d been in pretty bad shape. She could barely walk the first couple of days, and Dipper…. It was bad. Mabel still didn’t think his arm was set right, but they’d done the best they could. She’d done the best she could. The point was, they’d decided not to travel yet. They didn’t know where anything was in this place, and since Wirt—or at least Greg—had gotten out of the Unknown from a point nearby, they hadn’t wanted to stray too far.

She’d made her way back to the lake in daylight once, and it was just as creepy as it had been when Wirt had been there, standing guard.

She really didn’t want to return there again, so she’d explored other directions, trying to find the place where she and Dipper had crossed over. Dipper had looked, too. They’d marked anything resembling a path, cutting into the trees with sharp stones with a couple of knives they’d found in the kitchen, but she didn’t know how much use that was going to be. Getting out of here wasn’t going to be easy, and they weren’t certain of anything yet.

Some half-hearted searching while out scavenging for food wasn’t really enough to find anything definitive, but aside from the elusive entryway, Mabel wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for. Granted, unless the portal looked like a proper gap between realities, she wasn’t even sure she’d recognize that if she saw it.

“It’s my turn to scout,” Dipper said. “I’ll just walk the usual route, I promise. Can you crack the nuts and start soaking our supper?”

Mabel grinned. “Hitting stuff with a heavy object? No problem, bro-bro.” She knew Dipper would be fine. They had yet to encounter anyone else—heck, they had yet to see so much as the squirrel that had stashed the acorns—and they went scouting for signs of life as much as anything else.

Wirt had told them a bit about this place, but it wasn’t called the Unknown for nothing.

Dipper had run tests, of course. He’d tried everything he could remember from the journals, and she’d pitched in to help when it came to improvising things. So far, nothing had changed. It still felt like a creepily empty wood, the daylength and weather matched up with what she expected around Halloween, and she was sure the trees were alive in a way that wasn’t normal alive for trees—which in her opinion was entirely justified after Wirt’s talk of people turning into Edelwood.

It made her wonder if too few lost souls had wandered through and the Beast had found a means of turning other souls—other beings—into his fuel.

They didn’t know that for sure, though.

They hadn’t found any sign of the Beast, either.

Not since the lamp had gone out.

She was pretty sure Wirt had disappeared then, if he’d ever really existed. She hadn’t exactly gotten up right away to check. She’d been watching the lamp. She’d wanted to make sure it was out. And then she’d scrambled forward to grab it and smash it into the ground. It was only once the glass was finally broken that she’d realized that no one had tried to stop her.

As Dipper headed out, Mabel glanced at the twisted remains of the lamp they’d hung on the nail by the door. He hadn’t taken a candle—he insisted they preserve what supplies they could, even after nearly catching half the forest on fire after trying to carry around a flaming branch—but she wasn’t too worried about him. It wouldn’t take him long to walk the short scouting route. He’d be halfway back by the time she got all the acorns shelled.

Determined not to let this place get to her, Mabel started humming, making it up as she went. By the time she’d collected everything she needed, she’d started crafting words to match her song. She planned on teaching it to Dipper later.

XXXXXXXX

“Where’s Wirt?”

“What?” Wendy turned, frowning at Greg. “He can’t be that far behind us, he was just….” But Wirt wasn’t in sight.

They hadn’t gone that far since he’d said he’d had to tie his shoe. Then again, they’d been fairly close to the woods when he’d said it. And she knew enough to know that it didn’t take a demon to make things go bump in the night in Gravity Falls.

To be fair, she was relatively certain that Mabel and Dipper had befriended most of the, ah, unbelievable creatures that lived in the woods. That made it more unlikely that Wirt had been taken, though far from impossible. She wasn’t willing just assume he was fine, though. Past experience and family training drills had taught her to be more vigilant than that.

“Let’s head back and see if we can spot him,” she said. “He might have taken a wrong turn or decided to head back to Old Man McGucket’s.”

“Okey-dokey,” Greg said, turning around without protest and starting to whistle.

Wendy didn’t know the tune but didn’t bother asking, even if it might distract the kid; making sure Greg stayed safe was more important to her at the moment.

Especially since the other potential reason she could think of for Wirt’s disappearance involved possession. Specifically, his.

She sent a text to Robbie—he lived closest—to gather the others. They could comb the woods, see if they could find anyone (or anything) who knew what had become of Wirt. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be where they had left him, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have headed back alone.

She didn’t want to call Soos when he was out with his mother and Melody, so she called Stan and tried to keep her voice down when he answered. “Wirt’s gone,” she said.

He stuck her with babysitting duty. Didn’t even want her going into the woods with Greg. She might have protested if he hadn’t pointed out that if Wirt had been taken, Greg could be next, and he’d need someone who could fight to defend him. Until they knew what had happened, they couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone or something had Wirt and was looking for an opportunity to take Greg, too. Those two might be strangers to Gravity Falls, but they weren’t strangers to the secrets it hid.

And if they’d broken a deal and gotten on the wrong side of a demon, anything could be coming for them. For their world. Or at least anyone who could remotely qualify as a lost soul, if she’d understood the Beast’s MO correctly.

“Stick with me, squirt,” she called as Greg skipped ahead. “If Wirt decided to head back this early, that’s his problem, but we’re going to make the most of your first Summerween.”

The way he stopped and looked at her made her certain he knew exactly what she thought was going on and what she was doing. Divert. Distract. Deflect. Stopping just short of denying what might very well be an uncomfortable truth.

He didn’t call her on it, though.

Not yet.

He trusted her.

Or maybe he just trusted that Wirt would be okay, whatever had happened.

She wasn’t going to let him down if there was anything she could to do to help it.

XXXXXXXX

In hindsight, Wirt had no idea how long he’d been hearing the whispering before realizing that he was hearing actual words, not wind.

Once he did, he ran.

After tripping over a tree root and having the remaining breath knocked from him, he rolled to his side and listened over his gasps for breath as the voices grew louder.

Or maybe just clearer. More distinct from the wind than before. For all that they had followed him, they didn’t seem to be any closer.

He’s back! He’s back! He’s back!

The call was repeated in different voices and different tones. High, low, clear, gravelly, strong, weak, triumphant, fearful, incredulous, despairing. It was picked up and carried through an unseen crowd, fading with each repetition until a new cry began.

He’s lost! He’s lost! He’s lost!

He couldn’t outrun them. At least, he hadn’t managed to get any farther away from them; they sounded as near as they ever had. And…and he could feel them watching him, even if the watchers weren’t human.

It made him want to curl up and hide, to get away from the judgemental stares and mocking voices.

He’s trapped! He’s trapped! He’s trapped!

Wirt pulled himself into a ball, squeezed his eyes shut, and covered his ears.

He’s a pushover, snarled one voice, and the haunting cries of the others cut off.

Wirt sat up slowly, recovered the flashlight, and shone it around. No amount of squinting into and scanning the trees revealed what he was looking for. But even if he couldn’t see her— “Beatrice?” That had been her voice. He was sure of it. “Beatrice!”

There was no sign of her. Why would she have flown away? If she was still a bluebird—

“Beatrice!” She should have stuck around to tease him if nothing else. “Beatrice, where are you?”

Nothing but silence. And the stinging in his hands and knees that proved at least some of this was real—or felt real. He shivered. Maybe this was just his mind playing tricks on him, and there had never been any voices at all. What if he was in the wrong place? What if Ford’s machine had dropped him in the wrong dimension? If his connection with the Beast had been severed by Dipper and Mabel—

“No, this has to be the right dimension,” Wirt said. He wasn’t sure if he wholly believed the words, but saying them aloud made him feel better.

Still, the Unknown wasn’t this empty. It shouldn’t be this empty.

Something glinted in the debris. Wirt moved closer and then picked up and brushed off the gaudy star-shaped earring. Mabel’s earring. It was proof that he was in the right place, proof that they were here, or had been, and—

And he wouldn’t have found it if he hadn’t been running blind, if the voices hadn’t been chasing him, hadn’t driven him here. Had they been trying to help him? Beatrice’s voice hadn’t led the charge—he hadn’t heard her until the end—but he wasn’t sure anymore if he’d recognized any of the other voices.

He clutched the earring hard enough that its sharp edges dug into his palm. “Thank you,” he said quietly. Carefully. He didn’t know that this was the Unknown, the real Unknown, but even if it wasn’t— Even if it wasn’t, he’d been helped. He’d been terrified, but he’d been helped.

And he wasn’t foolish enough to brush something like that off as a coincidence this time.

XXXXX

Robbie kept texting her updates, but they hadn’t found anything. Wendy stole quick glances at her phone whenever Greg skipped up to the next house (they were hitting the opposite side of the street they had earlier), but the most she’d managed to get back to Robbie was a quick reminder to question everything they came across, not just the humans.

Gnomes and pixies and everything else might not associate too much with them, but they’d at least speak to humans they knew were friends of those involved in stopping Weirdmageddon.

If they were feeling particularly generous, they’d even tell the truth, if not necessarily without some sort of payment in return. Robbie and the others knew that, of course, but none of them had great bargaining skills. They’d picked up nothing from Stan while visiting her on her breaks at the Mystery Shack.

Wendy and Greg were halfway back to McGucket’s when she got the phone call. “Situation’s changed,” came Stan’s gruff voice. “You and the kid get back here.”

Greg was watching her curiously, so Wendy chose her words carefully. “We’re on our way,” she said, gesturing for Greg to keep walking. “Anything else?”

“We’ll fill you in when you get back. Don’t dawdle.”

Don’t dawdle. Right. Like she could rush back without alerting Greg to the seriousness of the situation. But Stan had sounded angry and worried. That could mean a million things, none of them good. And, more likely than not, Greg would find out something worrisome when they got back, anyway.

“You’ve got a lot of candy there,” she said. “Let’s go straight back before your arms break from the weight of your haul. We can decide if we want to go out again later.”

“Okay,” chirped Greg. “Is Wirt meeting us there?”

She hated lying to the kid. “I think he’s running so far ahead of us that he’s behind. If we hurry, we should be able to beat him back.” She struck up a quick pace, hoping the speed would be a sufficient distraction from her not-answers to Greg’s questions.

XXXXX

Dipper was so used to the silence that he noticed the sound before he noticed anything else.

It was a heavy, scuffling sort of sound, made by something much larger than a single gnome and much smaller than a multi-bear. He leaned against the trunk of an ancient oak and held his breath. Leaves crackled and crunched. A branch snapped. It hadn’t rained since they’d gotten here, which made it even easier to hear the approach—

Light flashed, swinging with each footfall and chasing away the shadows across from Dipper. He could hear breathing now. It was close.

Wirt swept into view, walking past Dipper without seeming to notice him, still swinging his flashlight around.

Dipper didn’t move.

He didn’t know if it was really Wirt.

For all he knew, it was the Beast.

Without knowing the exact words of Wirt’s deal, he couldn’t be absolutely certain that he’d succeeded in breaking it. And if Wirt had been straddling two worlds….

Dipper waited until Wirt—not-Wirt, the Beast, whoever—was far enough ahead that he was unlikely to notice Dipper’s movement in the darkness. He bent low and went as quickly as he dared along the familiar path. They were lucky Wirt hadn’t noticed it. He was heading towards their hiding place, but he wasn’t on the most direct route.

To be fair, Dipper wasn’t, either, but he didn’t need both arms to run, and that’s what he did as soon as he’d lost sight of Wirt’s flashlight beam.

He noticed the change in Wirt’s direction as he was reaching the shack. It was too late to extinguish the woodfire in the stove, but when he burst inside, he didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth before Mabel had picked up a fire poker. “What is it? The Beast? Let me at him. After what he did to Wirt and then us—”

“It looks like Wirt,” Dipper interrupted, knowing Mabel knew exactly what he didn’t say. Knew that looking like Wirt didn’t mean it was Wirt. A frown pulled at her mouth, but all she did was point to the pot of water where she was boiling the acorns. He eased it off the stove with his good arm and held it at the ready, prepared to throw it if needed. They took up positions on either side of the door, Mabel behind it in case the water tossing came before the poking.

He wasn’t expecting the knock.

From the look on Mabel’s face, she wasn’t, either.

He shook his head, and she closed her mouth.

The door creaked open. “Dipper? Mabel?”

It sounded like Wirt. Nervous. Wary. He came forward. Spotted Dipper out of the corner of his eye and froze, watching the steam curling up from the pot. He licked his lips. “That’s, um, not necessary. It’s just me.”

“It was just you last time,” Dipper snarled. He knew Mabel wouldn’t agree, but at least she was holding her tongue for now. She knew, just as he did, that if he could keep Wirt where he was, she could shove the door into him and knock him off balance—as long as he wasn’t prepared for it.

Wirt held up his hands. “I’m sorry. But it wasn’t just me then, and I don’t think…. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think I’m still connected to the Beast. He’s not the reason I’m here. Your great-uncle helped me. Ford.”

Dipper didn’t lower the pot, which was becoming painfully heavy in his hand, but he heard Mabel squeal from behind the door and peek around it. “You’ve talked to Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan?”

Don’t give him any more names to use against us, Dipper wanted to say. He couldn’t remember if they’d mentioned their grunkles by name before. He didn’t know if this was a trick. Mabel thought it wasn’t, but she’d thought that last time, too. He’d relented, and they’d paid for their mistakes.

“They’re trying to get you back.”

“Of course they would,” Dipper snapped. “That’s not a stretch. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened in our family.”

Mabel waltzed around, relieved him of the dangerously-tilting potful of water and acorns, and set it back on the stove. “Tell us what happened,” she said, turning back to look expectantly at Wirt.

Wirt told them about finding himself back in the real world, about searching for them, discovering their absence, and what he feared it meant. He talked about how Ford had broken back into the abandoned lab when Soos’s family was gone and how he’d used Wirt to create a portal. How Wirt had ended up here instead of Ford. How he wasn’t sure how they’d get back.

“Convenient,” Dipper said flatly when Wirt had finished.

Mabel shot him a glare. “It’s not his fault,” she said, even though, as far as Dipper was concerned, it was Wirt’s fault, at least in part—assuming any word of what he’d said was true.

“It is if he’s just lying,” Dipper said, staring at Wirt and watching for some flicker of expression that might give him away. “It is if the Beast just brought him back here again, like he had before. Demons don’t exactly play short games.” He read the wounded expression on Wirt’s face easily enough, real or not, but he still addressed Mabel. “Just because he believes what he’s saying, doesn’t mean it’s the truth. You know how much demons can bend reality in their own worlds. Wirt’s more effective if he doesn’t realize he’s still a pawn.” Like last time.

Wirt flinched, but he didn’t deny any of it.

“The world won’t end just because we decide to trust him.” Mabel ignored Dipper’s look and instead turned to Wirt. “We’ve never met anyone else here, and if you and Greg found a way out near here, it doesn’t seem to exist anymore.”

Wirt swallowed. “So we’re stuck until your uncle—”

“Grunkle,” Dipper corrected, narrowing his eyes. He wasn’t convinced that was a simple slip of the tongue.

“—can make another portal.”

“Or until we beat whoever’s holding us here,” Mabel said. “But that’s why Dipper’s being grumpy. If you’re you and not the Beast again, we’re no farther ahead. We haven’t had much luck finding clues. We don’t know this place like you do.”

“It’s not just knowing it,” Wirt said slowly. “It’s…. Mabel, you’re right. It’s empty here. And it shouldn’t be. I thought it was abandoned at first, but earlier, I…. I heard something. Voices. They helped me find you, I think.”

He held out his hand towards Mabel, and Dipper realized he was holding her lost earring. Her face lit up and she grabbed her earring before throwing her arms around him. “Thank you! I didn’t think I was ever going to see that again.”

Dipper wished he didn’t have to think that it might be a bribe, something to try to win them over.

But they knew less about Wirt than he apparently did about them, and it was hard to trust someone when you knew you were caught in a trap—especially when they might not even be real.

“What do you mean by voices?” Dipper asked carefully.

“The only one I recognized was Beatrice’s. It was…. I dunno. Like a crowd picking up a chant, close to me even though I couldn’t see anyone.” Wirt rubbed one arm and looked away. “I thought they were trying to confuse me, but maybe they were just trying to help me. I didn’t know where to find you. I didn’t recognize where I was dropped. But after I ran from them, I found your earring, and then I found you.”

How convenient. They’d never heard so much as a whisper in the woods—nothing beyond wind, anyway—but now, mysterious voices were suddenly helping. It was easy enough to explain away in a world of fabrications, but not in the true Unknown, not when he and Mabel had walked acres upon acres in all directions.

But being almost certain a place wasn’t real didn’t make it any easier to escape from.

He might be able to figure out the truth about Wirt, though, if he pushed it. Mabel would play along. She still wanted to trust him, anyway. “Then let’s go back out there and see if they’ll lead us anywhere else,” Dipper said.

Wirt didn’t look thrilled by this idea. “Maybe we should just wait until a portal—”

“The portal won’t find us,” interrupted Dipper. “We have to find it.” If Wirt was telling the whole truth, that wasn’t a lie. Grunkle Ford might be able to find the Unknown again even without Wirt there to help, now that he’d found it once, but he didn’t have an anchor. He wouldn’t be able to open the portal in a specific spot, not when he was working with partially-damaged machinery.

And if any part of Wirt’s words were a lie, Dipper didn’t particularly want to stick around and be a sitting duck.

Mabel managed to get the emergency candles lit before he realized what she was doing. She threw the boiling water into the stove when she was finished, dousing more than just the fire as steam hissed and acorns crackled. “Let’s go back to the lake,” she said. She managed to keep the tremor out of her voice, but Dipper knew how much she’d hated that place.

Wirt stared at her. “Are you crazy? If the Beast isn’t finished with me—”

“It’s the best option. Right, Dip-Dip?”

He nodded and took the candle she offered him, grateful that the brass holder wasn’t too heavy. “It doesn’t fit,” he agreed. “Doesn’t follow the same rules as the rest of this place. And if the Beast had you guarding it, that was for a reason.”

“And if you don’t remember it from before,” Mabel put in, “maybe it’s fake, even if nothing else is.”

Dipper pursed his lips but didn’t comment. Mabel was being optimistic, but she was wrong. More than just the lake was fabricated—or maybe everything but the lake, depending on where they really were.

“Let’s go,” he said as Wirt reluctantly took the third candle from Mabel. “We don’t know how much time we’ve got.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Wendy couldn’t stop Greg from hearing Stan and Ford shouting at each other when they entered the mansion, but she could slam the door behind them loudly enough that the twins stopped.

Unfortunately, that was enough time for Greg to run ahead of her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, opening the door to the hall on the two elder Pines twins and McGucket. No Soos, Wendy noted as she followed him inside, which hopefully meant it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

“Your brother went on a little trip,” Ford began, but Wendy saw Stan’s face harden and wasn’t surprised when he cut in.

“The genius over here sent Wirt through a portal,” he growled. “Broke into the old lab, even with half the equipment shot, and thought he could make things work perfectly.”

Ford shot Stan a sour look. “I was trying to help.”

“By sneaking around behind our backs!”

“Old habits,” McGucket said quietly, and Wendy saw the retort die on Ford’s tongue.

“This isn’t Bill,” he insisted instead. “I’m not being controlled or influenced. That’s over. He’s gone.”

“Like Wirt thought he’d escaped the Beast?” Stan retorted.

“Quit fighting,” snapped Wendy. “I’ll check in with Robbie. He can find out if there’s been any movement felt on that front.”

“He’s in the woods?” McGucket looked equally surprised and impressed, and Wendy resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“All my friends are. They’re not completely incompetent.” She wanted an answer right away, so she called instead of texting, and Robbie answered immediately. He’d found a pair of gnomes by the statue—nearly been ambushed in the process, apparently—but while they were on higher security, they didn’t have anything definite.

Especially since the so-called suspicious person they described sounded like Wirt in his Summerween costume.

“I just need a bit more time,” Ford said. “Soos can keep his mother out of the house long enough for me to figure this out. I can—”

“You’re not doing this alone, Sixer.” Stan’s tone left no room for argument. “If I can rebuild that thing off partial blueprints, I can help you fix it enough to get the kids back.”

“It’s not that simple. Without Wirt to stabilize the connection, I can’t keep a portal open for more than a few seconds, even assuming we can get everything working properly in the first place.”

Wendy saw Greg’s lip tremble. “So…so that means—?”

“Ice cream,” she interrupted, not wanting him to hear anything else. Ford had no idea how to talk around kids. “We should get ice cream. You like ice cream, right, Greg?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then we’ll definitely get ice cream. Right now.” She grabbed his hand and started to pull him towards the door. “Don’t worry; I’m sure Stan and Ford will have things figured out soon.”

She didn’t promise that Wirt would be home soon. That everything would be okay. She couldn’t.

Judging by Greg’s slow, reluctant footsteps, he’d noticed that this time.

XXXXXX

Dipper didn’t trust him, even if Mabel was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That much would have been obvious to Wirt even if he hadn’t been sandwiched between the twins, following Mabel as she led the way back to the lake. The trouble was, he couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t sure if he trusted himself, either.

He supposed he was safer with them. Well, that they were safer when he was with them. If the Beast did overtake him again, maybe they’d notice before it was too late. And this way, he couldn’t plot against them ahead of time.

“This really isn’t the Unknown I remember,” he muttered.

“Might not be,” Mabel pointed out. She still held the fire poker, occasionally using it as a crutch, and Wirt wondered if the Beast had made her injury worse. If he had, just like he’d broken Dipper’s arm. “Especially not if he’s working with—”

“Mabel,” Dipper hissed.

Mabel stopped to look back at her brother. “It doesn’t matter if we tell it to him straight, bro-bro. If he’s working with the Beast, he already knows, and if he’s not, then he might already know, anyway. He did go to Gravity Falls.”

“Yeah, but if he’s not working with the Beast, and the Beast doesn’t know—”

“He does. We told him last time, more or less.”

“It was more less,” Wirt offered, and Dipper snorted.

Mabel nodded and started walking again. “But you deserve to know more now. He’s trapped me before. In a fabrication. We had to fight our way out. Except here we have nothing to fight. So either the Beast’s powers are different, or we haven’t found the part he wants to protect yet.”

Wirt wasn’t sure what she meant. “Um….”

“She means you might’ve triggered something when you ran into the voices,” Dipper explained shortly. “You ran when you heard them. They scared you.”

“They helped me.”

“Maybe that’s what you’re supposed to think.”

Wirt stopped. “I don’t like this. We should go back.”

Dipper prodded him forward. “Exactly what you’d say if we were going in the right direction and you wanted us back off track.”

“No, it’s not like that, it’s—”

“But you don’t know that. It might be. You didn’t realize the Beast was using you as a puppet before, pulling your strings whenever he pleased. And I can’t be sure I broke your contract, especially when this place still exists.”

Wirt swallowed. “You don’t think it’s real, either.”

“Real is relative,” Dipper pointed out. “Just because someone made it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

“Besides,” added Mabel, “you said this isn’t like you remember it being, and it’s so…empty. Which makes it more likely that we’re not in the Unknown you remember.”

“But then why would I have been here in the first place? You should never have found me if this isn’t the real Unknown.”

“That’s easy. To trap us. Just because you were in this version of the Unknown when we came, doesn’t mean this was always the version you visited when the Beast called on you. You’ve probably spent more time in the other place than you realize.”

“But….” Wirt shook his head. “Ford’s portal, then. This shouldn’t have worked. I should have ended up in the real Unknown.”

“You said Grunkle Ford was using your connection to the Beast to open a portal, not your connection to the Unknown. You’d have both, but if the Beast is here, watching over us—”

“Then this is where his presence would be the strongest,” Wirt finished, glancing back to see Dipper’s approving nod. “But…but then that means Ford has nothing. He won’t be able to open a portal to the right place without me. He doesn’t have a connection to the Beast.”

“He’s smart,” Mabel said. “Him and Grunkle Stan and Old Man McGucket. They’ll think of something.”

But they couldn’t know that, not for sure. Wirt didn’t want to say it, though. That kind of thinking was dangerous in the Unknown—whichever Unknown this was.

The wind picked up, and Wirt shivered. “We should have waited until daylight.”

“We can’t afford to wait. Time might pass differently here.”

Wirt swallowed. He opened his mouth—

—and heard the whispering on the wind.

They’re coming! They’re coming! They’re coming!

“Listen,” he said, stopping, and this time Dipper didn’t prod him forward again.

They’re lost! They’re lost! They’re lost!

“Your voices?” Dipper murmured, and Wirt nodded. “Recognize any?”

It was too hard to pick out a single voice from the cacophony, and he had to shake his head.

They’re trapped! They’re trapped! They’re trapped!

“Maybe they’re just…borrowed,” Mabel offered. “From the citizens of the real Unknown.”

“Like a soundtrack?”

Mabel rolled her eyes at Dipper’s incredulous tone. “Yeah. I mean, without anyone actually here, the Beast would get lonely, wouldn’t he?”

“But Beatrice’s voice broke through, like she—”

Dangerous magic.

“That’s her!”

Too many tricks.

“B—” Wirt cut Mabel off with a hurried shh and motioned for them all to listen. It was Beatrice’s voice, breaking through like last time, trying to tell him something, trying to help him, trying to—

Get out. Get out. Get out!

“How?” Wirt cried.

Nothing.

Dipper looked at Mabel. “This isn’t like anything he’s done to us before,” he said quietly. “We can’t be sure this is him. We can’t assume it is, just like we can’t assume it isn’t.”

“We have to keep going.”

“For the record, I hate that idea,” Wirt muttered. “Look, Beatrice is trying to help, so if we just wait for her to come back and tell us more—”

“We can’t.” Dipper’s answer was the one Wirt knew he was going to get, but that didn’t mean he liked it. “If the voices are just triggered—”

“What if they’re not? What if they’re actually trying to help?”

“We have to risk it,” Mabel said, and she turned and started off again. Wirt trailed after her, waiting for the wind to rise again. Waiting for the voices to come back. For Beatrice’s voice to come back.

Wirt still kept his flashlight in one hand and Mabel’s candle in the other; there wasn’t much other light to be had, with the moon still hidden behind the clouds. When the wind suddenly rose again, blowing out their candles and sending his hat into the trees, his flashlight was the only light they had.

“Careful,” came Dipper’s warning, but none of them needed it; they all knew to be on alert. His sweeping flashlight caught nothing, and the whispering hadn’t come back, but—

“I’ll trade you,” Mabel said, swapping her unlit candle for his flashlight before he could think to protest. “Come on. We’re close.”

“What if this is a bad idea?”

“We’re close,” Dipper repeated. He shoved Wirt’s hat into one of his pockets, pulled his own low, and pushed Wirt forward.

Wirt frowned but opted instead to strain his ears for any trace of the voices, any clue that might—

Get back!

The echoing cry was so loud that, even expected, he jumped and stumbled. The warnings were repeated, louder, circling them—

“Keep moving,” Dipper hissed in his ear, and Mabel reached back to grab his hand. If he wanted to stay in her circle of light, he didn’t have a choice. He squinted against the gusting wind and ducked his head. If he lost the light—

“I never triggered it before,” Mabel yelled as she fought against the howling wind that tried to push them back. “I think it knew that I didn’t want to stay and explore. I think it knew it was safe.”

“How is this safe?”

“It’s not,” Dipper hollered, trudging forward on Wirt’s other side. “Not now. Not when we’re doing what it doesn’t want us to do.”

“But that’s the point,” Mabel added. “We’re not going to get out of this if we keep doing what it wants.”

She didn’t add what Wirt suspected: that they probably would’ve tried as much earlier if it hadn’t been for him and the condition he’d left them in. If they’d been able to go out together, confidently, with the intent of escape instead of the intent of survival and making do until they were well enough to make a decent escape attempt.

He swallowed the rest of his protests, put his head back down, and fought his way forward, following them even as the voices started to scream. Started to beg. Even as Beatrice’s voice cut through the rest and yelled at him to go back, to stay where he was safe.

Because while it was her voice, it was no longer her words.

Mabel and Dipper were right. It was some kind of illusion, some kind of defense mechanism. He would have trusted it, would have fallen for it, were it not for the Pines twins. The Beast had used Beatrice’s voice to try to convince him, but he hadn’t managed to steal her spirit.

It was another confirmation that this place was the fabrication. Maybe he’d always been coming here, maybe he’d gone to the real Unknown before, but the Beast had had a hold on him once. If Dipper hadn’t broken it before, maybe getting out of here with them would break it for good.

Dipper’s hat flew off his head, hit Wirt in the face, and disappeared into the darkness. Wirt’s wild grab couldn’t save it, and Dipper caught Wirt’s eye and shook his head; he wasn’t willing to go back for it.

Another step forward ended in Wirt being yanked backwards, and he realized his cloak had caught in the trees. Ahead of him, Dipper was helping Mabel rip her hair free from a tangle of branches. He couldn’t remember the ground being soft before, but suddenly his shoes were sinking into the muck, sticking and threatening to trap him—or at least trip him.

This place really was trying to keep them from reaching the lake.

It had certainly never tried to stop them from leaving it.

Mabel yelled something, but this time the wind stole her words away. Still, she was pointing ahead of them, and Wirt could see what she had: a glimmer of reflected light.

The lake.

XXXXXXXX

Two hours after their ice cream, Wendy was running out of excuses to keep Greg from talking to Stan and Ford. And when he managed to give her the slip—no easy feat—and make it back to the Mystery Shack by himself, she decided she couldn’t fight it. He’d figured out that the secret lab was at the Mystery Shack, after all, and hadn’t been freaked out by a wax head of Larry King telling him how to get into the secret basement, so she figured he deserved to stay.

“You’re good, squirt,” she admitted after he told her how he’d found the place. Ford had shot her a dark look when she’d come down the secret stairway to find Greg sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, but Ford wasn’t one to talk when it came to responsibility. After last summer, Stan had proven his worth when it came to handling kids; as far as Wendy was concerned, Ford had a ways to go. Especially after what had happened to Wirt. Just because she’d known how to tie dozens of different knots at Greg’s age, doesn’t mean Wirt knew how to tie even one decent knot.

Greg hummed in acknowledgement of her praise and went back to watching Ford and Stan argue. “It’s not working, is it?” he asked quietly.

“They’re good at this kind of thing.”

“But they’re missing something, aren’t they?”

Wendy hesitated. From what she could overhear, Ford was insistent that they needed some sort of anchor or they’d be flying blind, punching into who knew how many dimensions before finding the right one. Confirming Greg’s fears would crush him—she could see how much he loved his brother—but she didn’t want to give him false hope. She’d been taught how dangerous that was, too.

“Yes,” she said. “They are.”

He nodded, his face solemn. “They need a connection to the Beast.”

“To do this fast? Yeah, I think they do.”

“Then they’ve got one.”

Wendy blinked. “What?”

“I’m a connection,” Greg said. “I made a deal with the Beast, too, right? To free Wirt. And then Wirt freed me and we got home. So I’m connected. Because I used to be connected.”

“Greg, I’m not sure—”

“Wirt needs me,” Greg said, climbing to his feet. “I’m going to help him. Make sure the Beast doesn’t get him again.”

“But—”

“That’s why I came,” he told her. “To protect my brother.”

When he crossed the floor to talk to Stan and Ford, Wendy didn’t try to stop him.

XXXXXXX

The world seemed to tilt, and Mabel dug the fire poker into the ground to steady herself. She couldn’t tell if there were still voices shrieking in the wind, trying to warn them away, but she was certain that the trees and the earth itself were working against them.

Just like when she and Dipper had first come here, tripping her up and testing them both.

Also like when she and Dipper had first come, the lake’s surface was smooth, entirely unaffected by the gale that blew over its waters towards them. It still radiated wrongness, and she was still terrified of touching the water, but she fought down the urge to turn and run. They had to keep going. This world had abandoned its illusion of harmlessness. Even if they turned back, they might not be able to keep fighting long enough for Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan to find them.

Mabel raised the flashlight again, sweeping it along the shore. Her heart skipped when she didn’t find what she was looking for, and then she saw it, off to their left. The rowboat.

She didn’t know what lay on the other side of the lake. None of them did, not really. Not-Wirt had told them that he ferried people across to the other side, those who chose to go, who chose to cross, but they hadn’t met anyone. It couldn’t be true. The voices they’d heard did not belong to those who’d taken his offer.

And…and if they did, well, she’d fight when she saw what they were facing on the other side.

“This way!” she shouted, though in all likelihood it was the waving flashlight that caught the attention of the others.

It took longer to close the distance to the boat than she’d expected, even considering how often the roots tried to trip them up, the thorns cut them, and the branches snag them. Once they got out of the forest, they skidded on gravel, tripped over uneven ground, or sunk into soft earth; there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, which made things worse.

One of her shoes came off in the mud. She tried to tug it out, but it didn’t want to come, so she left it. She pulled off her sock and went barefoot, pleased it was easier to walk this way. She was willing to deal with the cold and muck if it got her out of here.

The boat was smaller than she remembered, but she bit her lip and scrambled inside anyway. They’d have to make it work. Just because it didn’t look seaworthy, didn’t mean it wasn’t. Especially here. Things weren’t what they seemed here.

Wirt and Dipper looked at her and then at each other. She hadn’t discussed this part of the plan with them, not knowing if the boat would still be here, but they knew what she was thinking readily enough. Dipper nodded and climbed in beside her. Wirt glanced over his shoulder at the dark woods and then said something that was lost in the wind. Mabel nodded as if she’d heard him anyway.

Wirt gave the boat an experimental shove. It rocked beneath them, and this time, the water rippled. Wirt looked pale and wrong, strangely shadowed as he was in the flashlight beam, and the red streaking the side of his face from a cut on his temple didn’t help him look any more human. But his nervousness was human, as was his determination, and he pushed against the bow of the boat and waded into the lake until they were off the sandbar and floating freely on the water.

He nearly tipped them while climbing in, but once they were all in the boat, the wind stopped. It was as if the world had paused around them, the only sounds their breathing and the quiet drip of water from Wirt’s clothes. She couldn’t tell if dark shapes were darting across the shore or if it were merely her imagination.

“Let’s get farther out,” Dipper said, and his voice sounded hoarse. He handed his oar to Wirt, and she did the same, keeping a firm hold on the flashlight. Wirt wasn’t in the best position to row, but she wasn’t sure they could switch places without ending up in the lake.

“Do you think this is the right move?” croaked Wirt.

Mabel glanced at Dipper, but neither answered right away. The world was quiet now except for the uncoordinated splashes of the oars as Wirt struggled to turn the boat around, but something was still…wrong. She just wasn’t sure if she could trust her gut anymore. Not-Wirt had tricked her before, after all.

Dipper gave a slight tilt of his head, letting her answer first. But she didn’t know what to say. She could smell the wetness in the air, taste the building fog. She could see the first wisps of it visible in the flashlight beam, and nothing but a wall of cloud beyond. If they rowed into it and lost the shore, they could be going around in circles. It would be entirely too easy to get turned around.

“This world isn’t real,” she said finally, giving voice to what they’d all accepted by now, “and we don’t know how long it’ll last. Even if it’s not the right move, we can make it the right move. We just need to keep going.”

She glanced up, straining to catch sight of the moon between the clouds. For a split second, she did, bright and full—and then it flickered, shadows blending to white as darkness slit the middle, and the eye winked before it was covered with clouds again. Her breath caught in her throat, and she thought she heard laughter in the distance.

Judging by Wirt’s and Dipper’s uncomfortable expressions, they heard it, too.

XXXXXX

“Wirt needs me,” Greg repeated, “and I can help.” The adults didn’t seem to hear him, though. They were arguing again. They did that a lot. Did all adults do that? He didn’t want to do that when he was older.

Besides, he didn’t know why they were arguing. It wasn’t as hard as everyone thought. Whatever they needed a connection to—the Beast, the Unknown, Wirt—he had it. And Wendy had already tied three ropes around him, all double-knotted. And if all of that failed, well, he and Wirt would get out of the Unknown again, and bring Mabel and Dipper with them. It wouldn’t be much different than before.

He’d miss having Jason Funderburker along, though. He had a really good singing voice.

“You wanted an anchor point,” Stan muttered to his brother.

“He’s a child,” Ford hissed back.

“Who can do something you can’t. And is perfectly willing to. For his brother. I know what that’s like. ‘Sides, it’s not like kids haven’t helped us before.”

“This is different.”

“You sure? Sounds like another demon scumbag to me. Just a dimension you weren’t in.”

“I need to fix this without endangering—”

“And how are you going to do that, Sixer? All I’ve heard out of you for the past two hours is that you can’t, not without a lot of time or some kind of anchor thing, whatever that means. And now you’ve got one of those and you don’t want to use it?”

“Blindly punching through dimensions won’t get us very far,” Ford growled.

“So use the kid!” Stan reached out and pat his head, and Greg very pointedly did not squirm away. He wanted to be used. That’s why he was here. To help Wirt. That’s why he’d come. For his brother.

He’d just thought it would take a lot less arguing once he’d pointed out the obvious.

Greg glanced at Wendy, who had finished tethering herself to the giant lever sticking out of the floor. “Hey,” she called. “We’re doing this for Dipper and Mabel and Wirt, aren’t we? We need to get them back as soon as we can. So let’s do this.”

Ford grumbled under his breath, but he still brought some suction cups on wires over to Greg and told him that he was going to put him on. Greg let him. They didn’t hurt, just felt a bit funny on his skin; Ford had put something sticky on them first. Ford started to tell him what to concentrate on, how it had felt when he’d made a deal with the Beast, but Stan interrupted and told him to focus on his brother. On Wirt. Greg could do that. He nodded.

The older Pines twins checked their bindings and his, and he told them he was ready, and then Wendy threw her weight into the lever, shifting it forward.

As the machinery started up with a whine that built to a roar, Greg closed his eyes and thought of Wirt.

Something sparked and cracked, red flashing across his eyes. His breath was stolen from his lungs, and then his feet lifted off the ground and he began to fly.

XXXXXXXX

“He’s here,” Mabel said quietly, more for Wirt’s sake than Dipper’s. Dipper knew that laugh. “Somehow.”

“He’s not as powerful as he’s pretending,” Dipper said, but his voice lacked the conviction of confidence. “He can’t be. He needed the Beast to pull this off. We wouldn’t have run into Wirt otherwise.”

“You sure about that, Pine Tree?”

Dipper winced as Bill Cipher’s voice cut through the fog. They couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean anything; they wouldn’t be able to see him unless he wanted them to see him, especially not in here. “Positive,” Dipper shot back, his voice stronger than before.

“Then how do you know you and Shooting Star aren’t just dreaming as you’re turning into Edelwood?”

She could see him taking form in the fog, thickening on the edge of the light.

“They dream, you know. The lost souls. Until their essence is consumed.”

“The dreams would be happier if that were true,” Mabel retorted. “To keep people inside their dreams.”

More laughter. “You’ve never met the Beast, have you?”

Despite herself, Mabel glanced at Wirt. He was huddled in on himself, shivering as much from the wet and the cold as from the chill in Bill’s taunts. He wasn’t the Beast, not now. But if he had been before—

“What happens to you,” Wirt challenged suddenly, “if you fail? When we all get free? Maybe you and the Beast both wanted to gain more power, and you needed us. Maybe you thought I could be used to trick Mabel and Dipper, that they’d become Edelwood for the Beast. That would get them out of your way, wouldn’t it? And…and you thought you could use me, too, didn’t you? Back home. Where the Beast couldn’t. You thought you could trick me, maybe break my deal with the Beast and let yours take its place. Except Dipper already broke my deal, and we’re going to escape, and you’ll both be left behind.”

Bill Cipher materialized behind Wirt so quickly that Mabel jumped. He looked exactly as she remembered, all bright colours that should be sealed in solid stone, but she knew how skilled he was at illusion. He wouldn’t need to have much power to manifest here. “What makes you think I’ve failed?” he taunted. “You’re the one helping them cross the lake, Gatekeeper.”

Wirt’s face lost its colour, and Mabel knew he wasn’t sure if he trusted his own actions. “No,” he wheezed out, but he had been the one to cast them off, the one to row them out into the lake until the fog had closed off their path, and he’d drawn the oars back inside to let them drift.

“The Beast told us we could cross or we could stay,” Dipper said softly, “and made us think we’d be worse off if we chose to cross. That’s what you’re trying to do now, too. But we can see through your mind games. You can’t get out of here without one of us, and we’re not going to just lead you back—”

Dipper broke off.

The fog was shifting, blowing away from them, and something that wasn’t the moon flickered behind them.

“Row!” Mabel yelled, hearing Dipper’s voice in concert with her own, and Wirt set the oars back in the water and obeyed, straining with every stroke. The boat shifted, cutting through the water even as the fog thickened, trying to steal away the light. Bill tried to stop them, tried to trick them, but Wirt ignored him and, even as Mabel and Dipper ducked, pulled the boat right through Bill’s form.

Bill Cipher was nothing more than illusion here, even if the illusion was his own.

He wasn’t strong enough yet to have a physical presence after what they’d done to him.

The light was fading, unsteady as a candle in the wind, but the portal was still there when they reached it, hovering just above the water in reflection of the moon that was finally visible again above them. This time, Mabel didn’t care about rocking the boat. She stood despite her bad leg, grasping Dipper’s good hand in her right and holding onto Wirt with her left.

“We have to jump,” she said, but as the boys scrambled to their feet, the boat pitched beneath them.

They fell.

XXXXXXXX

Wirt wasn’t sure what was more disorienting: falling down, then sideways, then down again, or going from dark and foggy to flickering fluorescent lights.

He lay where he fell, letting the solid coolness beneath his back settle the spinning world around him.

Greg’s face appeared briefly in his line of sight before Greg’s arms wrapped around him, fingers digging between him and the floor. “Wirt! You’re okay!”

“I’m okay,” he agreed, despite the pounding in his head. “We’re all okay. We made it.”

Greg sat back, and Wirt took that as his cue to sit up. Darkness swirled on the edge of his vision, but he still heard Greg say, “You needed me, like I said you would. I helped save you.”

Wirt smiled. “Thank you.” He could guess what had happened; Greg might not be hooked up to any machines at the moment, but circles of red were still visible on his skin. The younger Pines twins were worse for the wear, but the elder pair were fussing over them, Dipper especially. This left Mabel with the freedom to wander over to Wendy, probably to compare experiences and find out what had happened on this side of things.

“Is it over?” Greg asked quietly, dropping to the floor beside Wirt and leaning into him.

Wirt hugged Greg to him with one arm. “I hope so,” he said. Time would tell, but he thought his connection with the Beast had been broken. He should be safe. No more unwitting trips to the Unknown—or wherever else that had been. He should be safe, Greg should be safe, and Beatrice and everyone back in the Unknown should be safe—or as safe as they ever were.

But he remembered the statue the gnomes had been guarding in the forest, and he knew he’d met another demon tonight, the one Mabel and Dipper had faced before. And he remembered what Carson had told him. How the statue called to people, drew them here. Carson had assumed the same had happened to him, and Wirt wasn’t sure he could deny it.

He remembered how it had felt when he’d arrived, stepping into a place charged with energy that Greg seemed entirely unaffected by.

And then there was Dipper’s comment about how demons made plans, playing the long game. Wirt knew it applied to the Beast. He didn’t need to ask to know that it also applied to Bill Cipher.

He didn’t know if this was really over.

He wasn’t sure how to tell.

It made him understand why Bill’s appearance was what had truly spooked Mabel and Dipper, more so than anything else. It had confirmed their fears. Likely as not, they didn’t think this was over at all; they were probably going to spend the rest of their vacation preparing—though how anyone could prepare to face a demon, Wirt didn’t know.

“Good,” said Greg. “But if this is the end of our adventure, do you think we’ll be able to buy the talking head? He promised to help me with my homework if we brought him home.”

Despite himself, Wirt started to laugh, and Greg giggled, too, and it finally felt good. It finally felt real. He was home, he was among friends who knew his crazy stories for the truths they were, and he belonged.

And if it wasn’t over, well, at least he wouldn’t be caught unawares again.

(see more fics)

#gravity falls #over the garden wall #otgw #gf fanfiction #otgw fanfiction #crossover #my writing #ladylynse #crossover snippet #snippets #otgw snippet #gf snippet #happy birthday! #this post won't show up in search because I have links #but oh well

[junker-town]

How sports is Seven Worlds, One Planet: Episode 5?

Alfred Trunk/McPhoto/ullstein bild via Getty Images

David Attenborough’s new show is epic ... and sports.

We continue our extremely important mission to conduct a scene-by-scene review of the BBC’s new nature documentary, Seven Worlds, One Planet, in order to see how sports it is. We determined that Episode 1, which focused on Antarctica, was reasonably sports. Asia was very sports, as was South America. Australia was more drinking than sports, but that’s OK. Now it’s time for ...

Episode 5 Europe

Let’s start with a prologue: there are really only six continents, and Europe’s not one of them. I’m sorry, it just isn’t. Every other continent is separated from its neighbour by something sensible — an isthmus, perhaps, or a whole-ass ocean in the case of Australia. Europe is just a chunk of Eurasia that thinks it’s cool. You’re never going to convince me that the Ural Mountains are a sensible continental boundary. Europe’s a big, smug, densely-populated peninsula and that is all.

There is still some cool stuff going on there though.

Scene 1: Attempted Urfanticide

Europe used to be dominated by an enormous forest. Almost all of it is gone. Such progress! But some remains and in Finland there’s enough to support a small (1,500) population of brown bears. Some members of that population are adorable:

This scene isn’t all frolicking baby bears, however. Where there are bear cubs, there are also bear mothers, and where there are bear mothers there are hopeful bear-fathers in pursuit. Bear, as you may know, share an unfortunate habit with many large carnivores: if they can, big males will kill infants which they haven’t fathered.

So when a big male shows up, the cubs play it safe and scamper up a tree, while the mother responds to his catcalls by telling him to leave her family the hell alone. (I don’t speak bear, but the context makes things clear.)

The cubs then proceed to play it somewhat less than safe, coming down while the male is still in sight. They’re in mortal danger, so the mother goes full on Bear Mama and runs the male off into the woods. Good parenting. Bad childrening.

Aesthetics 9/10

I just want to squeeze their little bear cub cheeks, although, since their mother could tear me in half without trying, I would probably have to be quite drunk to actually attempt this.

Difficulty 8/10

Bear cubs are surprisingly good climbers. Conifers have straight, overly-disciplined trunks, and are therefore much harder to climb than most large deciduous trees, which are more sprawling and inviting. And yet the little dudes zip straight up them.

Competitiveness 10/10

Male brown bears average almost 500 pounds. Female brown bears are closer to 350. That’s one brave charge.

Overall 27/30

Most parenting is not a sport. Bear parenting is a sport.

Scene 2: The Hair-Cows

When my three-year-old saw this scene, he decided he was watching “hair-cows”, which is at least as good a name as “musk ox”. (He also claimed he wanted to eat “hair-cow nuggets” for dinner, a worryingly predatory request.) Hair-cows are, true to their name, very hairy cows that live up in the tundra.

The tundra is not a very nice place to live. It’s cold, there’s basically no vegetation to break up the wind, and although it’s majestic in a desolate sort of way, I don’t think I’d be able to appreciate it on account of not being able to feel my legs. The hair-cows’ shaggy coats help them stay warm in this barren environment. Their huge horns help with ... other stuff.

Hair-cow herds are run by a bull, who controls mating rights for the whole group. A bull who doesn’t run a herd essentially has to go off and live on his own, which makes them pretty enthusiastic to upgrade their living situation. And that’s where the horns come in.

When a lone male meets a herd whose leader he thinks he can handle, this happens:

Still not as bad as the hangover from last week #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/IIwSbmrU4I

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

Let’s review the numbers. Quoting from Wikipedia, hair-cows:

can reach speeds of up to 60 km/h (37 mph).

on average, weigh 285 kilograms (630 pounds) and range from 180 to 410 kilograms (400 to 900 pounds).

Big bulls at the top of their game will therefore weigh close to 900 pounds and charge at each other significantly faster than, say, Usian Bolt. They also have four-inch think skulls to protect each other from a battering. Well-matched males can end up charging and gouging for some time, and if the fight goes on long enough we start to get head-to-flank goring action. Which just seems unpleasant, really.

Anyway, this is a long and drawn-out hair-cow fight. Good stuff.

Aesthetics 6/10

Hair-cows aren’t the world’s most attractive creatures, but at least they have style. Demerits on account of male hair-cows smelling like they’ve coated themselves in urine, because that is in fact what they have done: “The odor of dominant rutting males is ‘strong’ and ‘rank’. It derives from the preputial gland and is distributed over the fur of the abdomen via urine.”

Cool.

Difficulty 10/10

Taking a single head-on hit from a hair-cow would send your corporeal self into next week and probably eliminate your soul altogether.

Competitiveness 10/10

This is a great fight. It’s long, hard-fought, and there are enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. Well done, hair-cows.

Overall 26/30

Definitely a sport.

Scene 3: Wolves

You don’t really expect to find wolves roaming around Europe. Well, that’s not exactly true: I played last year’s Assassin’s Creed, so I expect to find a pack of wolves roughly every four yards, including in major cities. But in real life, finding a pack of wolves on the edge of an Italian village would come as something of a surprise.

Not that you’re likely to find these wolves. They’re so elusive that the Seven Worlds team had to film them all through thermal cameras, which gives this whole scene an ethereal look:

Sirius Black? Is that you? #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/DZvtQTW8Xg

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

It’s mid-winter and the wolves are hungry, so they’re attempting to ambush a herd of red deer in the darkness. Their first attempt fails thanks to a combination of being too noisy and having their hunt disrupted by a passing car. Humans!

Their second is better planned out, and they manage to isolate one of the deer and herd it down the mountain. As it tries to escape, it slips on an icy road (humans!) and the hungry pack manage to bring it down.

Unfortunately, the hunt has been watched by the village sheepdogs, who flood out to chase off the wolves and claim the kill as their own. Poor wolves.

Aesthetics 7/10

The night vision gives this an air of fantasy, which is nice because one gets the feeling that these wolves would be somewhat bedraggled had they been caught on normal cameras.

Difficulty 8/10

Hunting down deer in what amounts to pitch blackness sounds very difficult indeed.

Competitiveness 8/10

The deer give the wolves a seriously hard time, and the emergence of a third party right at the end is a clever twist.

Overall 25/30

Extended hunts are almost always sports.

Scene 4: Monkeys

The presence of Barbary macaques in Gibraltar is a reminder of the planet’s habit of undergoing massive changes over relatively short timescales. There are no monkeys in Europe except these ones, and they’re here because around five million years ago, the Strait of Gibraltar was closed, and north African animals had free rein to wander over to the Iberian peninsula.

Then came the Zanclean Deluge. With the Straits closed, the Mediterranean had no access to the Atlantic and slowly evaporated. And when they re-opened, the Mediterranean re-filled in about two years, powered by what was probably the biggest waterfall the planet has ever seen. This has very little to do with the monkeys. I just think it’s interesting.

Gibraltar, right on the southern tip of the continent, is home to Europe’s only monkeys. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/GMnBIod7Eq

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

Anyway, Barbary macaques spread across southern Europe, but eventually (I assume because of the Ice Age, etc.) they collapsed back into a small population at the Rock of Gibraltar. Around 300 monkeys still live there. Some of those monkeys, incidentally, have a thing for kidnapping.

A low-status female monkey (these macaques live in tiered social groups) has just had a baby, and a higher-ranking female is jealous of her. So she steals the baby and runs away. The mother is so low-ranking that she can’t approach the other monkey for fear of the rest of the troop ganging up on her.

High monkey drama ensues as the kidnapper — who clearly has no idea what she’s doing with a baby — makes her escape, climbing a cable car tower with a tiny little monkey dangling off her. Eventually the mother catches up with the baby-thief, but the gang is more than 100 feet above the ground, and any wrong move might lead to a fall and certain death ...

... so naturally, the situation is resolved by grooming. Mama monkey finds a random monkey to groom within sight of the kidnapper, who gets so jealous that she gives the baby back in exchange for a change to get in on the action.

Most of this was some action movie stuff, but the end might be difficult to translate. I’m trying to imagine Liam Neeson rasping into his phone about his “particular set of skills,” only for them to turn out to be removing parasites from the other person’s hair with his teeth.

It’d be weird, but you’d watch it.

Aesthetics 7/10

Monkeys just aren’t that cute, even baby monkeys. The tension, fortunately, is accentuated by the impressive cinematography.

Difficulty 10/10

As a parent I have found it is more or less impossible to do anything with a baby, so climbing a cable car tower while fleeing the scene of a crime, baby in tow, is impressive work. Not morally impressive, mind.

Competitiveness 10/10

The ending doesn’t take anything away from the stakes.

Overall 27/30

Kidnapping monkey babies is sports. But please do not attempt this particular sport, at home or anywhere else.

Scene 5: Grave-Robbing Hamster Battle

This is it. This is what we’ve all been waiting for. The culmination of Sir David Attenborough’s long and storied career lies here, in a Viennese graveyard, where hamsters lie in wait to feast upon the offerings left for the dead ...

... it turns out that European hamsters love flowers. LOVE them. And, as graveyards have plenty of fresh flowers for them to munch through, that makes them prime hamster territory. Prime territory, of course, does not go uncontested. And while hamsters are cute and adorable, they’re also ferocious little balls of anger when roused. Observe:

Thug life. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/ePaxjj8Ybd

— BBC One (@BBCOne) November 24, 2019

Thwarted by the martial skills of the home hamster, the challenger has to sneak in while they’re distracted. And here, they’re more successful, creeping merrily over a tombstone and then munching happily on a bouquet before being enticed by a nice, uh, candle.

Attenborough claims that candles are full of oil and high in calories and therefore excellent hamster food, so I’ll take his word for it. The hamster certainly agrees, stuffing their face with as much wax as they can fit into their squishy little cheeks, which turns out to be a lot of wax: European hamsters can apparently fit about a quarter of their body-weight in their cheek pouches.

And now I should mention that this candle is in a jar with a slightly-tapered mouth and ... oh no.

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #wevealldoneit #chonkyboi pic.twitter.com/TDhY1YEpBd

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

My only regret is that Edgar Allen Poe never found out about this.

Aesthetics 30/10

COME TO ME, MY GRAVE-ROBBING HAMSTER FRIENDS. TOGETHER WE SHALL RULE THIS DISMAL PLANET.

Difficulty 10/10

WE SHALL RULE IT IN THE NAME OF PEACE.

Competitiveness 10/10

AND JUSTICE. AND COMPASSION.

Overall 50/30

AND DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS CANDLES. IT WILL BE A BETTER PLACE. ONE FULL OF HAMSTERS, WHICH ARE SPORTS.

Scene 6: Mayflies

In June, the largest of all mayflies emerge from a Hungarian river. They’ve spent three years as larvae preparing for just a few hours of adult life. The males come first, flapping to the banks to get one last molt in, and then fly back to the river to catch the females, emerging later.

There’s a terrifying amount of competition to fertilise female mayflies, accentuated by the fact the male mayflies are literally dying as they scramble to find a mate. The females have timed their emergence to within a few minutes of the males’ death, and as their corpses float past they then fly up-river, 10 million-strong. Then they die too, releasing their eggs upon impact.

Houston, that’s a lot of bugs. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/zp5GddXM2B

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

Within hours of the mayflies emergence into the European summer, they’re all dead. This is the most metaphorical metaphor that has ever metaphored.

Aesthetics 3/10

After three years of feeding and growing on the riverbed, the male mayflies appear first.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/V3bOFAv3R1

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

No.

Difficulty 8/10

It must be hard to try to be at the top of your game when you’re literally on the verge of death, especially in the middle of a mayfly melee.

Competitiveness 10/10

An entire generation of male mayflies fighting it out at the same time? Yeah, this is getting high marks.

Overall 21/30

Probably a sport.

Scene 7: Asshole Pelicans

Great white pelicans breed on the delta of the Danube river, one of the richest in the world. There are two things you should know about great white pelicans. The first is that they are huge. And I mean really, really huge: their wingspan can get to well over 10 feet and they can weigh as much as 30 pounds. The second thing you should know is that they’re assholes.

Flying above the delta, the pelican flock scans for food, using other birds for help

Cormorants: Come over. Pelicans: Can’t. Busy. Cormorants: We are eating delicious fish. Pelicans:

The real question here...are you a pelican? Or a pelican’t?#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/YRaphn3WUY

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

Do the pelicans go fishing once the cormorants have done the hard work of finding their prey? No. That’s not assholish enough for a great white pelican, and is also far too much work. Instead, they wait for the cormorants to do the fishing and then do whatever the hell this is:

K...O#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/48F9A4UDOM

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

The bullied cormorants quite naturally give up their spoils upon being engulfed by these horrible huge pirates. Imagine what it must be like having your head wrapped up in a penguin pouch. It’d like someone jamming your face into a yellow latex glove, and I’d rather get actually mugged.

Aesthetics 10/10

This scene is beautifully shot. All non-raptorial birds look better in large numbers, and the coordinated flight of the pelicans is gorgeous.

Difficulty 7/10

All these pelicans have to do is find and harass the people doing the real work, then enjoy their rewards. They’d do very well in the modern office. The cormorants, on the other hand, have to go fishing while being mugged by assholes, which sounds pretty difficult to me.

Competitiveness 5/10

Pick on someone your own size, pelicans.

Overall 22/30

Fishing is a sport. Piracy ... is also a sport?

Scene 8: The Offspring of the Cave Dragon

The face of Europe has been scoured by humans, turned from forests to homes and farms and roads and etc.. Under the skin, however, is a different story. Mankind’s reach doesn’t extend very effectually into caves, and nor does the sun’s, which leads to some very weird critters.

Olms, so far as I can tell, are the European equivalent of the American axolotl: blind albino cave salamanders which stay in larval form their whole lives. Unlike the axolotl, which is sort of cute, olms are very not:

Olms have feathery gills which enable them to breathe underwater, as well as on land.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/W75pHQ8gpS

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

Here be dragons Well...baby ones at least.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/MjdCQcDmxM

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

What they lack in cuteness they make up for in looking-like-an-eel-ness? Their weird looks and hermetic life led locals to believe that they were somehow related to more mythical beasts: 17th-century naturalist Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, upon handling an olm body, claimed that they were “baby dragons” which “resembled lizards.”

Fair enough, Johann.

Aesthetics 4/10

Weird-looking critters. Even the bonus point for being mistaken for baby dragons doesn’t net the olm very much.

Difficulty 10/10

Olms live in pitch blackness and only get a meal about once every 10 years. Even ignoring hunger, that environment would quickly reduce even the most hardened human into a gibbering wreck.

Competitiveness 0/10

Nothing happens.

Overall 14/30

Sorry, Johann, but olms aren’t sports.

Scene 9: Lynx

10/10 on the graceful fence leap, extra points for epicness.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/rkwRWiDxZN

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

It is hard to be an Iberian lynx. Nearly extinct, and hemmed in on all sides by human development, their population was at one point reduced to double-figures. Their final fastness is in southern Spain, where conservation efforts are going reasonably well. We are introduced to a lynx patriarch, who has helped preserve his species by fathering ... wait ARE WE GOING TO GET KITTENS?

And the award for cutest cat family goes to…#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/cfqvVJl0Qf

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 24, 2019

KITTENS! Anyway Iberian lynxes are doing better these days, but still not well at all. Europe has been so over-developed that there’s no room for wild animals to co-exist along with humans, and so, like the lynx, large animals everywhere are under threat. Unless people make a concentrated effort to be much better neighbours, the lynx, and many other critters, won’t last long.

Aesthetics 10/10

KITTENS!

Difficulty 7/10

Imagine living your days in existential dread, suspecting that you might be close to the end of the line for your whole species. Couldn’t relate.

Good jump though.

Competition 0/10

Nothing happens.

Overall 17/30

Probably not sports, although I could be tempted to change my mind for reasons entirely related to KITTENS!

[tripodsandturbulence]

February 26, 2017

I was excited to be leaving Asia after almost a year there, and spending a few days in Europe. I was looking forward to the food, the culture, and the architecture; all bound to be very different from Asia.

We had a long day of travel, first to Dubai, where we spent the night in the airport, and then to Sofia. Our plane flew over the Zagreb mountains in Iran for over an hour. It was a landscape of sharp white peaks shimmering in the sun, and one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever flown over. I was happy to stare out the window for a long time.

As we flew into Sofia we were struck by how much everything looked like home. The landscape was like a quilt of patchwork farm fields, interspersed with brown forests and small hills.

We took the metro from the airport to our hotel, and had to walk the last few hundred meters. It was so nice to be back in a place with smooth paved roads, traffic lights, traffic following rules, no horns, and no motorbikes. It felt so calm and organized. I have really missed that.

When we walked into our hotel room I felt instant happiness. It was large, with a small balcony, a comfortable bed, a seating area, and a nicely tiled bathroom with real 24/7 hot water and fast wifi. By western standards it was nothing special, but to me it felt like 5 star luxury. That night was a write off for me. I was so exhausted from the lack of sleep the previous day, that I fell asleep at 5:30 and didn’t wake up until 6:00 the next morning.

The next day we had booked a shuttle to take us to the Rila Monestary, about an hour and half away, with a short stop at Boyana church along the way. The church was tiny, but was special because it was filled with frescos (murals) from the 13th century. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside though. It was interesting for a brief stop. The drive from there to Rila Monestary was pretty, and reminded me once again of scenery from home. We drove on highways through rolling farmland and small towns, deciduous forests with small streams running through them, and small mountains framing the background. It was a cold and cloudy day, with rain always threatening. The Rila Monestary itself was fascinating. It dates back to the 14th century, though most of it was destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt in the mid 1800’s. It is still home to around 50 monks today, and a small museum onsite houses some fascinating religious relics. It is a vast complex, and it reminded me of something out of Alice in Wonderland, with it’s odd black and white striped archways, and red striped church capped with orange domes. It was definitely unlike any other church or monestary I have ever seen before.

The following day we took a free Sofia walking tour of the city. It turned out to be amazingly informative and interesting; the history of Sofia is so rich. Bulgaria has some of Europes oldest cities, and Sofia is 6000 years old. We walked around the city centre learning about mosques turned churches turned museums turned back to churches; the central metro station which took 10 years to complete because they kept digging up 5th century roman ruins and having to stop to unearth and preserve them, and then move the metro station over only to unearth more ruins; the various communist era buildings and statues; and the history of all the various rulers of the country. We walked past churches, mosques, synagogues, mineral baths, museums, banks, theatres, and all kinds of other buildings, learning the history of them all and how they functioned in the city in different ways over different periods of time. By the end I was left wanting to spend much more time in Sofia, to visit these places in more depth, and to just walk around the streets on my own and take it all in. But we were in a bit of a rush, and had just enough time for a quick lunch before we had to rush over to the meeting point for the Balkan Bites tour, a free food tour of the city. This tour turned out to be equally interesting and we learned all about the various influences on Bulgarian cuisine throughout the ages, from Balkan, to Slavic, to communist era, to a slow food movement which has begun. We learned Bulgaria has unique yogurt with its very own species of bacteria which can not be grown in a laboratory; there is a strong wine culture, with many vineyards in the country; and they hate it when tourists call their food “tzatziki and feta” because these things are not unique to Greece, it’s only that Bulgaria was under communist rule for so long the world never learned about Bulgarian cuisine. We also got to sample some traditional foods, with cheese and yogurt heavily featured, as well as traditional wine and Slavic pastries.

We had such a great time in Sofia, though it was definitely too short. We had to catch a bus to Plovdiv right after our food tour ended, but maybe we will go back to Sofia early on our last day in Bulgaria, and explore the city in more depth.

#bulgaria #sofia #easterneurope #rilamonestary #balkan

[bostonianinminneapolis]

Translating Minnesota for New Englanders Coming to the Super Bowl

  by Joanne Meehl

If you’re coming to the Super Bowl, here are some things about Minneapolis (and Minnesota) you’ll want to know, translated by this former Bostonian. I may meander a bit as I write a section but in the end, it all helps you better navigate the place and the culture.

Note: For all Super Bowl events, see this guide: https://www.mnsuperbowl.com/events

Here we go, in no particular order:

1.26.18

The WIND

It’s almost always windy here. Which is no fun when it’s super cold and/or when it’s snowing. We don’t get as much snow as you do in Massachusetts but it stays around longer because it’s colder. It was in the 40s yesterday and will be so today, but the temps predicted for game day will be closer to zero. So be sure to bring the right headgear or you’ll be miserable. On bad days I wear a knitted hood/scarf under my hooded jacket. You know that heavy-duty parka in the back of your closet that you save for Mt. Washington or the colder slopes in Vermont or Maine? Bring it.

And that’s why there are about 8 miles of Skyways in Minneapolis and St. Paul, each. The Skyway connects you from building to building at the 2nd floor in most cases and often there are stores and restaurants and companies along the way, almost a second city. If it’s going to be that cold leading up to the game, you’ll learn to love the Skyways.

But Winter’s Fun, Doncha Know

Minnesota makes winter fun with the “Bold North” theme. There are many outdoor activities at this time of year and in “the cities” especially near the stadium it’s very walkable. There are many guides being published online and elsewhere that list “best of” restaurants and other venues, such as at Trip Advisor. There’s a lively music and theater scene (more live theater seats here than anywhere outside of NYC), tons of breweries, university/college culture. Politically we lean left but not nearly as much as Mass., and people here are typically thoughtful and considerate. And yes, nice. Predominate heritage here is German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Lutheran so you won’t find the outgoing-ness of the East Coast.

Architecture

Before I ever visited the area, I had this image of boxy Midwestern buildings. Wrong! Even in the suburbs, there is very cool architecture and building lighting here. Definitely not Boston red brick colonial.

Also, many cities here built their Main Street just like other streets. Don’t look for the town green with the old white church. 

Terminology 1 - Parking

Parking garages: They’re called “parking ramps” here. And they smell better than in Boston. And amazingly, in many places in the denser suburbs, they are free. And in the city (or St. Paul, nearby) the cost of parking is way lower than it is in Boston. But expect them to be full. Easiest: Park outside the city, take the light rail in. You know, like parking in Newton and taking the Green Line into Boston.

 Terminology 2 - Food

Soda is called pop here. Casseroles are called “hot dish”. 

 Terminology 3 - The cities and geography

Minneapolis and St. Paul (the state’s capital) are known of course as the Twin Cities. People here just say “the cities”. Minneapolis is a bit more cosmopolitan and modern, St. Paul more Old World and a bit lower profile skyline. St. Paul is often called “the last city of the East”, and Minneapolis “the first city of the west” because of where they are located on the Mississippi. So you’ll find TV and radio stations here that are like WCCO (St. Paul, east of the river) and KARE11, west of the river. BTW, I watch KARE11 for news and they’ll be broadcasting all week up to the game from Nicolette Mall, a bunch of streets in Minneapolis currently dedicated to the Super Bowl. The media here is pretty sophisticated.

Terminology 4 - Native Americans

Native Americans here prefer to be called Indians. So if you hear Minnesotans referring to Indians, they are not being politically incorrect, they are just using the preferred terminology. Unlike in the Northeast, here Indian tribes wield economic and political power. They run most if not all of the casinos in the state. 

 Radio

For THE best music radio station anywhere, even beating the college stations in Boston/Cambridge, don’t miss 89.3 The Current. It’s a Minnesota Public Radio station dedicated to indie/local/cutting edge rock and new artists, though they’ll surprise you with Billie Holiday or classic blues every now and then. Their hosts know their stuff, too. My favorite place for jazz and similar: The Dakota. Great food there, too.

 Finding your way around

The grid of streets in Minneapolis is pretty easy to understand. In some suburban cities (yes, there is such a thing here – think Weymouth or Framingham, for comparison), such as Plymouth (Minnesota) and Maple Grove, street names are used over and over again – so there might be 4 Norwood Lanes but what separates them is their numbers (always 4 or more) so you’ll find Norwood Lane in the 6000s is a whole different location than the Norwood Lane in the 7000s. Oh, and you will find that Minnesota has cities or towns named Andover, Bellingham, Cambridge, Lexington, Melrose, Randolph which still weirds me out when I stumble upon them.

 The Mississippi

Although the Charles River through Boston is pretty wide there at the Zakim and other bridges, when you see the Mississippi you feel its might. It’s figured into so much of our nation’s history, including here in Minnesota. To see it, go to the Guthrie Theater at the north end of Minneapolis, and, well, just look down. The theater is worth a tour all on its own – someplace I take everyone who visits here, because of its cool history, the actors who’ve played there, and the performances, of course. Great little gift shop and restaurant, too. An hour or two south, the river is even wider and truly awe inspiring.

 Prices

It’s generally less expensive here than in Massachusetts/New England but people *are* raising prices for a week or so before and after the game. If you’re renting someone’s apartment while here, know that what you’re paying they will use to pay their mortgage for a few months. Hey, you’re from the East Coast, you can afford it, right? ;)

Religion

Lutheran Lutheran Lutheran -- it’s the main denomination here for white people. But that means a wide range, from old fashioned Garrison Keiller-style Lutheran church ladies to very right-wing Christian. There are many stand-alone Christian churches who while outwardly nice are largely anti-gay, anti-liberal, man-in-charge-of-the-family type churches. People here in general assume you are Christian and wear their Christianity pretty openly, even at business meetings, which I found jarring when I first moved here. And still do. 

There is a large Muslim population, Ethiopians and other Africans who’ve settled here over the years, who are now running for office and taking leadership roles. 

Guns

When I first moved here and saw signs at the doors of many restaurants and stores and elsewhere that said “No guns allowed here”, I was like WHAT?! GUNS?! Know that here in the northern Midwest, you are not in Massachusetts, and that you are now in “most of America” which is a gun culture and that’s really clear here. Minnesota is not an open-carry state (so far) so you won’t see people brandishing their weapon.

 Yes, it’s worth it to go to the Mall of America

It was built inside a former baseball stadium so you get the idea of size. Four stories, three levels of stores (some are in the mall twice because it’s so big), hotels, restaurants, and a full amusement park at its center. The light rail (surface rail line, like the T only way cleaner!) comes right to the mall from downtown. Ikea is right next door. You’ll definitely get your steps in no matter where you go there.

 Minnesota is HUGE

Minnesota is larger than all of New England put together. It has 87 counties (vs. 14 in Mass., and I can still name them all). If someone here says they are “from outstate”, they mean they’re from outside the metro area. The state was settled in the 1800s and became a state in 1858, relatively recent times to those of us from New England who are used to dates from the 1600s and 1700s in our states’ histories. 

The state is 1/3 mostly pine forest (north), 1/3 deciduous trees (the middle third, most like the Northeast US, including maple trees), and 1/3 plains (south). It’s flat or rolling with some elevation in Duluth, about 2.5 hours northeast of the Twin Cities and a cool industrial chic college town. North of there on the way to Canada is the Sawtooth Range, a low “mountain” range along Lake Superior. 

Lake Superior: Seeing any Great Lake for the first time is an absolutely freaky experience: it’s the ocean, you think, because there’s waves and seagulls and an unlimited horizon. But then again it doesn’t smell like the ocean. Many in the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Michigan-Illinois area refer to this part of the country as “the central coast”, because the Great Lakes really feel like the ocean, including expensive property prices if you want a house on the shore.

 Taxes

Minnesota is the most heavily taxed state in this north central part of the US. Result: highly educated people, a rich diversity of industries, many free options including a strong county-based library system and amazing outdoor activities like trails everywhere even in the hearts of most cities. But compared to the tax rates back east, they’re pretty moderate, so when I first arrived here and people said “Oh, our taxes are so high!”, I laughed at them. I then pointed out how many services they have and the quality of life. New buildings, beautiful ball fields and sporting facilities, family activities, free movies and music on town stages, large civic centers, STEM schools, much more than I used to see back east. 

So quality of life is high here. There’s a saying that real estate people here use: “When people are asked by their company to transfer here, they usually are against it. But they take the transfer. Then when their company wants to transfer them elsewhere later, they refuse because they love the quality of life so much, and they stay”. 

 More about the people here

Yes, there’s “Minnesota nice”, people who will help you in all kinds of ways even if they don’t know you. But Minnesotans have a rigid circle around themselves: They tend not to live elsewhere, meaning they go to college in Minnesota and get married here and stay here, even if they are transferred around by their company, they vacation here. So family is central to their lives and their best friends are family, not necessarily someone they work with. 

If you’re outside that circle you get to experience Minnesota Ice… in Massachusetts, you meet someone and pretty early on you’re inviting them over for dinner so you can get to know them better. In the 8 years I lived in one neighborhood here, no one ever had us over for dinner. I learned not to take offense because, as one native told me, they don’t invite EACH OTHER over for dinner – because they’re not family. I took some exercise classes and normally have an easy time striking up converations with people but not here: the women who were 100% of the class, after I’d say hi, would turn away and resume converations with their friends they came to class with, and not introduce you to the others. So it’s hard to make friends here if you’re not from the family!

 Minnesota Drivers

Minnesota drivers are maddening. At stop lights, they stop at least one car length from the line at the lights. You wonder if the light will get tripped by the first car being so far back (it does, somehow). The light turns green, and the person ahead of you now seems to be making a decision: Can I go? Is it OK to go? Will I be considered obnoxious if I go? For this still-impatient Bay Stater, it makes me nuts they are so slow on the green light. I don’t use my car horn to push someone but jeezelouise, after a few moments you want to  Even if you are about to crash into them, they WILL NOT use their horns; they would rather you hit them than they be careful and use their horn – because, dontchaknow, that would be being aggressive.