#idk i wanted to go a different route and ended up with journalism somehow

[sparrowwritings]

Final Fantasy Writing Challenge Day Thirty-One: All that glitters is not gold

Day Thirty -- Masterpost

Normally, Bailey Gatlin wouldn’t even bother looking at a job like this. She generally got by through odd jobs and the allowance that her brother gave her each week (when the money was available, anyway). Living like this didn’t leave a whole lot of room for frivolous spending, and her boots were worn down to the point where she could feel every bump in the road so that needed to be addressed. 

But. She absolutely, desperately wanted to pick up that jewelry set that she saw in the market just that morning. The pieces were gorgeous and bright and they matched her violet eyes and there was a kind of net of gems and gold that would look so nice in her hair...at the cost of Bailey needing to use her boot money to get it. Just as she was about to lament her lack of pretty things, a sheet of paper had blown into her face. After a minute of wrangling it and looking at the offender, a she suddenly had a plan for being able to get both relatively easily.

A journalist for the biggest newspaper in Ul’dah, The Mythril Eye, was looking for help with an article. No journalism experience required, all travel expenses paid, with a stipend to be granted on completion of the article. No actual number had been put in the ad (since they’d get everyone at their doorstep if they did), but there was an address listed for those who wished to apply. There were more details, but Bailey ignored them in favor of running straight for the place. 

This was going to be absolutely perfect.

-----

“No.”

“Wha’ d’ya mean, ‘no?’”

The miqo’te journalist folded her arms and gave Bailey a disapproving look. “I shouldn’t’ve taken on that ad is what I mean by no. You’re the fifth person today that’s just looking for a quick buck. You’re gonna run off as soon as I tell you what the article’s about.”

Well that just wasn’t fair. “I’ll have you know I c’n handle anythin’ ya throw at me.” She threw her arms to each side. That, combined with her annoyed expression made the lalafell look more like a pouting child. She knew that, but still maintained eye contact with the journalist who still hadn’t even introduced herself. 

After several solid seconds of silence, Bailey’s stubbornness won out. The journalist sighed and scratched at one of her ears. “I’m not going to hold my breath about that one...I’m writing an article about all of the good the Warriors of Light have done for us lately. With interviews and testimonials from whoever I can get to talk to me. Your job would be to not only get a hold of and arrange for me to talk to people, but also any other way you can assist. Arranging rooms, making sure we both eat, that sort of thing.”

She could feel her eye twitching. Her right ear certainly did with her irritation. “Sorry, I don’t think I heard ya right...yer sayin’ ya want a glorified gofer? So ya don’t hafta do th’ hard work while writin’ yer article?” 

The journalist at least had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m trying to do something big and flashy for my first official article. I suggested writing a piece on the Warriors of Light since people have been starting to talk about them a lot.”

Bailey thought back to a newspaper her brother, Rennis, had been reading the other day. “Doesn’t th’ Harbor Herald already write about the girl Warrior of Light? What’s her name…”

“Lara Marner?”

“Yeah, her.” 

“She was already something of a local celebrity before she was known as a Warrior of Light,” The journalist answered with a head shake. “I’m looking more specifically to write about people who know both her and Roger Briden as the Warriors of Light.”

“But why?” Bailey pressed. “People with way more experience than you are writin’ about’m already, what’s gonna make yer article pop?”

“Pop?” The journalist’s brow furrowed. 

“Yeah, pop.” She emphasized the word with a literal pop from her lips. “Make it different than all th’ others. Leave th’ readers ta only wanna read yer stuff. Articles don’t get advertisement like a store does, an’ most people are only gonna read it once so ya gotta be more creative ta draw attention.” With a shrug, she added, “Maybe find some sorta gimmick you think people’re gonna be willin’ ta go with.” 

Rennis had always been the more business savvy of the two. As long as the person was right in front of him, he could generally get even the most stubborn of customers to get something from his shop. It didn’t leave him a lot of room to be artistically creative, so the advertisement side of things was all Bailey. She had been the one to coin the name, Gatlin’s Goods. She had worked so hard she could barely stand just to scrape up enough coin to post ads in at least one newspaper. She was fully willing to test her brother’s mechanical inventions in public so that people would ask questions (even though she definitely would have done so even without an ulterior motive).

Instead of mentioning any of that, at the continued stare of the journalist Bailey gave a small grin and a shrug with, “I know a thing’re two about marketin’ yerself.”

Again, all was quiet between the two of them. Then, the journalist slowly, gently, started to smile. “You know what, I think you have a good idea. And a job.” She held out a hand towards the lalafell. “Sahve Lhuke. I can’t promise that it’s gonna be an easy job, but I’ll do my best regarding that.” 

Seriously hoping that said job wasn’t actually going to involve being a glorified gofer, she extended her hand in kind. “Bailey Gatlin. I’ll hold ya to it.” 

The two shook on it. 

“So, what’s yer plan? Or new plan from th’ look’ve things.” 

“It’s going to be a whole series of articles.” Sahve was already rapidly writing something into a blank book she kept in her back pocket. “And we’re going to need to talk with the leaders of Gridania, Limsa Lominsa and the Sultana at some point.”

Well Bailey couldn’t fault the girl for her ambition, even if she was suddenly daunted by the task. “We’re startin’ small tho...right?”

“Of course!”

She let out a sigh of relief. 

“We’re going to talk to the Warriors of Light themselves.”

“WHAT?!”

-----

Warriors of Light Tell About Experiences! An Interview with Young Heroes was a middling success. Sahve had been hoping for more of a hit, but Bailey could tell that the journalist was milking the praise for all it was worth. Again, she couldn’t really blame the young woman. Having her article out there meant more people would read it and come find them instead of making Bailey go looking. Which she definitely was doing more often than anything else.

At least she was getting paid for her help in “assisting” the journalist in her writing. Mostly it was a lot of running around as if she knew what she was doing and managing to stumble into interesting anecdotes about the Warriors of Light. Bailey outright refused to actually write anything. “I’m not lookin’ fer my name on th’ byline, but I also ain’t gonna be blamed fer crap you mess up on.” Was a line that she refused to budge on and Sahve seemed to understand, even if she asked Bailey’s opinion on word choices every so often. 

It was turning into a good arrangement. 

Even Ren couldn’t help but comment on it the next time she helped him with his booth. “Yer bein’ run ragged, but ya look about as happy as when ya get ta test out my stuff. That’s somethin’.” 

Bailey blinked at him with a head tilt. “Really?”

“Yeah. Guess those articles are worth more’n just th’ regular paycheck, huh?”

It took her a long moment to realize that yeah, they were. She hadn’t even noticed that she had saved up more than enough money for the jewelry set until then. The idea of picking it up just didn’t appeal to her, anymore though.  Bailey’s thoughts these days were mostly on who next to interview, and the process to contact them. Followed by talks with Sahve about what was done and what was *to* be done for the next article. It was all kind of nice. Like she had something of a purpose.

The fact that everyone that she’d talked to (or listened as Sahve interviewed them) had nothing but praise for the Warriors of Light helped Bailey a lot. If the kids (because they really were kids, she’d discovered) had been selfish or cruel or greedy she probably wouldn’t be enjoying this job so much. Maybe that would change with time or with more grey-colored choices, but for now this was how it was. 

That gave Bailey an idea. She made a mental note to talk to Sahve about a future article. One that goes over how the Warriors of Lights’ feelings had changed over time. 

After they finally manage to get that interview with the Sultana that Bailey had been trying to schedule for ages.

#ff14 #Final Fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #fanfiction #writing challenge #All that glitters is not gold #lara marner #roger briden #bailey gatlin #Sahve Lhuke #i made her up #name generator did well here #idk i wanted to go a different route and ended up with journalism somehow #bailey as a journalist (or at least journalist assistant) really fits her tho #anyway #CHALLENGE COMPLETE #I DID IT #WOO

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

hey,,,your thoughts and headcanons on indchuran college au 😳😳😳😳😳(i am very predictable as per usual)

o-o o-o college aus have my heart so thank you for the ask! These turned out as platonic/general hcs but I hope you like them nonetheless! (also this isn’t really associated with any set AU and is separate from the indchuran bros for life AU)

notes: this is based on the little I know about how US colleges/universities work ahahah sorry for any inaccuracies lol

— They’re all in the same year, and China and India got put in a dorm together with Iran next door (oh my god they were roommates ;) )

— They meet when Roshan heard Aditya’s got a copy of a book they wanted, went over to borrow it, and found Aditya trolling Yao with meme songs while the latter was wearing headphones and trying to study (this is kinda half assed and I don’t think it’s funny enough so if you’ve got another meeting scenario please do tell 👀)

— Yao’s fashion is a hot mess, per usual. It’s half lazy college student wear and half blinding eye-strain. Sometimes he still goes edgelord mode and does dark colors and goth attire when he’s particularly annoyed or grumpy (in addition to threatening to evict Aditya/steal all his possessions if he’s bugging Yao); Aditya and Roshan just coo at this. 

— Roshan dresses very eccentrically. I think it’s called the art hoe aesthetic? They dress like an art student but pick even more outlandish outfits. But it’s elegant in an eye-catching way, and it makes them stand out a lot. They like it and also love the attention it gets them :) also Roshan would be an amazing person to ask for clothing opinions, except that they might criticize your current outfits too much hksdfsdf

— As for Aditya, I don’t really have a set image for him really? lol I'd give anything to see him dressed in some kind of academia aesthetic (glasses are a bonus), but I feel like his style is more casual and comfy? just average person casual shirts and hoodies. Still knows how to pick good outfits though, but makes awful decisions when in the wrong headspace (like being Severely sleep deprived)

— Yao either studies a) business b) politics c) game theory d) a mix of all three (overachiever). I think he’d also take some of those like, quantum math classes and stuff just to ~expand his horizons~ and ends up taking enough to get a minor in that. Also absorbs STEM stuff from other people although he never went that route :\

— Roshan studies art history! They’re wicked at math as well though, I think they’d definitely be interested in studying pure mathematics as either a minor or a fun side hobby.

— Aditya minors in literature/creative writing and regularly waxes poetic about life. He also complains about the school cafeteria food in flowery prose. Yao yells at him to just make food himself if it’s so bad, but it’s too much effort 😔 (this is literally me)

I’m still undecided on what he majors in, but for now I’m stealing your hc that it’s biophysics :>

— Yao’s tried dabbling in stocks as part class project and part personal side hobby; one of his professors probably helps him with this, and somehow he gets a lot of money even though he invests in some very questionable things that look like shitpost material

— Courtesy of talking with @luyous, these three competitively study during midterms/finals season. They hardcore compete to get the best grades, even though they’re in different majors, and literally. the temperature heats up a couple degrees in the dorm when they’re revising because they all want to “beat” the other two 😭

— Literally they’re such bookworms but have a thirst for being The Best 😔

— Yao has a shit sleep schedule and both Aditya and Roshan have called him out on this multiple times; Aditya more often because they share a room and it’s kind of annoying when your roommate’s desk lamp is still on at 3 AM while you’re supposed to be sleeping. He eventually bought an eye mask for this but still has to forcibly drag Yao to bed at least once a week.

— Aditya is the resident boomer and tech hoe (although he fools around on the computer more than he does useful stuff) inspiration from you raunak <3

— Roshan and Aditya once tricked Yao into watering a fake plant they bought from Target for a full five months :) They keep a log of the shenanigans on their respective social medias as proof <3

— Roshan has a windowsill with a line of very cute potted plants! It’s very aesthetic and they show them off to anyone who asks. Don’t touch though because the plants are their babies

— Aditya sings very well! Has perfect pitch and all that. Does karaoke nights with friends, drags Yao along even though all he does there is type away on his laptop (and sometimes glances up to simp for Aditya). Often prank calls acquaintances, occasionally with Roshan, because he’s also pretty good at voice acting

— Out of the three, Aditya’s probably the friendliest if you’re a stranger, but it do be hard trying to build a friendship with any of them 😔 yao’s condescending to strangers and it takes some time to crack him if you don’t come off as quick-witted and smart on the first try, Roshan doesn’t really take people they just met super seriously unless they can impress/charm them, Aditya’s flashy but is kinda flaky and sometimes talks down to you and seems to always have something else to do besides hanging out one on one unless you win his respect. They’re good with each other though, occasional spats are mostly misunderstandings unless there’s Too Much miscommunication going on

— They’re all kinda legends for academic achievements. Roshan probably got a paper published in some vaunted journal about idk, changing methods of making pottery in ancient Iran or something; Yao has his stocks (and is also kinda rich in the first place so he’s “famous” before that) and Aditya probably got an internship or opportunity to do lab work for a cutting edge research thing

— they no-homo each other all the time it’s insane. It doesn’t help that they’re in close quarters (Yao and Aditya being roommates and Roshan right next door) so it’s like, accidentally wearing the other’s clothes, stealing snacks, so much touching and closeness lol classic pining material

— Yao jokes at least once a day that Roshan is just a parasite of his and Aditya’s dorm, with the amount of time they spend in there instead of in their own dorm, but they sniff haughtily and say that at least their dorm is much more organized than whatever indchu have going on (it’s true; Yao believes in organized chaos and pretends his organization system is having No Organization; Aditya just does whatever he wants and “anyways I’ll find it when I need it”, Roshan is the only sane one here)

— Roshan drinks tea religiously (all three of them do, but Yao chugs energy drinks sometimes, Aditya binges coffee when needed, whereas Roshan’s solution is tea)

— They’re kinda chaotic but it’s fine they’ll make it through uni :)

#aph china #eugh i need to revamp my Official college au for these guys #yao will still be running a restaurant but he's also doing 230948309 billion side jobs as usual #roshan's gonna be a ta #grad school woohoo #i still don't know where to put india in my very old au; originally he was gonna be a ta and iran was gonna be in grad school but hmmmmmmmm #hws china #musings #aph india #hws persia #aph persia #hws india #headcanon musings #indchuran #aph iran #hetalia #hetalia college au #college au #hws iran #friendly-neighbourhood-desi #ask musings

[purplesurveys]

1275

When you were younger, did your mother or father ever let you open a few presents before Christmas or your birthday even arrived?  We open all our presents the night of Christmas Eve to begin with; but no, they don’t tease by letting us open a few of them before our usual schedule.

If you could receive a 100 dollar gift card for either blouses, pants, dresses, shoes or purses, which would you chose?  If I could change blouses to shirts, then I would go with that because I’ve recently gotten into t-shirts and sweatshirts and no longer the trendy and preppy tops I used to like haha. But if not, I would go for shoes.

What is your favorite thing to do after crying? Ex: Sleep, listen to music, have some alone time, talk to someone, etc?  It varies as it depends on how much I cried. The harder I cried the more I’d want to sleep it off, because it can actually get pretty exhausting. Sometimes I’ll reach out, sometimes I write. It’s really different every time, but at the end I’m just glad I can no longer even remember the last time I cried out of sadness.

Do you think Trump will be assassinated, or will he survive his term?  Well we know the answer to this. It’s satisfying to notice him disappear off the face of the Earth immediately after his term, though. I don’t have a clue what he’s up to now.

Last time you felt suicidal?  For some reason I felt down last Thursday and I felt the slightest, slightest tinge of suicidal thoughts. No idea where it came from.

Last time you had butterflies?  Ugh idk but it was probably BTS-related hahahahahahah

Biggest asshole you know?  Certain politicians.

Did you ever leave someone because you know you’d hurt them?  No, I was on the opposite side of the coin for this one. I was broken up with because they believed they would hurt me, if not already doing so.

What song did you last listen to?  Hip Hop Phile by BTS.

Ever ridden in a police car?  Nopes.

Ever witnessed a murder?  Hmm, not that I can recall. I do remember having to monitor crime stories for one of my very first journalism assignments and the one time I didn’t tag along to the fieldwork with my classmates, they got to witness a stabbing incident :/ By itself of course it always sucks to have violent situations like those, but as a reporter it would’ve been interesting to see the scene and its aftermath.

Have you ever lied under oath?  I don’t think so, no. I can’t even remember the last time I was put under oath.

Have you ever failed a subject before? I’ve failed exams but never an entire class.

Have you ever had a deadly animal as a pet?  No.

Have you ever kissed someone of the same gender?  Well yeah, I dated one.

Have you ever been in a hot tub before?  Sure.

Have you ever been to a movie that sold out?  I’ve never experienced trying to buy tickets only to find out they’re all sold out, but that’s also probably because we have hundreds of malls in Manila alone and you can always find a theatre that are still offering tickets.

What movie last made you too scared to go to sleep?  I’m not usually that way with horror movies, but I do remember running into a jumpscare on TikTok while I was scrolling at 3 AM. Not fun.

When you’re on a laptop, do you hook up a mouse or use the touchpad?  Touchpad. I never use a mouse.

What’s your mom’s mom’s name?  Agnes.

Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the person you like?  I’m not interested in anyone so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Have you ever been tempted to steal?  Sure, but the urge is never so strong.

What is the main character’s name in the book you’re reading? I’m not reading anything.

Do you have a favorite local band? Who are they? Nah. I did have a Ben&Ben phase, though I haven’t revisited their music in a long time.

Who’s the last person you saw naked, aside from yourself?  I’m not sure about completely naked, probably still my ex. As for partially naked, my dad sometimes goes shirtless at home as most Filipino dads do lol.

Who’s your favorite horror monster/killer?  The most iconic for me would be that porcupine looking ass from Resident Evil 4, I believe it was meant to be for one of the boss stages or something. Anyway, it’s memorable for me just because that fucker had been impossible to defeat and I loved watching my older cousin do attempt after attempt. I don’t think he ever got to beat him and by the time he did us cousins were already adults, lol.

On a side note, we called him ‘Porcupine’ as kids since a shitload of spikes would stick out of him unpredictably during the boss stage, and I thought that nickname had been just our thing; but I’m actually surprised that that villain actually comes up when you do a simple ‘Resident Evil 4 porcupine’ search haha. I guess other people called him the same thing too.

What kind of music do you prefer to listen to when driving?  I usually put on a playlist of BTS’ rapline; I tend to enjoy high-energy songs while driving.

Would you ever own a hairless rat, cat or dog?  I don’t see why I wouldn’t when it comes to the dog. I don’t want a cat or rat. 

All the people you’ve kissed, what did their names start with?  G.

What did you and your ex fight about most?  It was about the deeper, more profound stuff. We never saw eye to eye about the future, if we were helping the other grow, etc. Someone was always scared or insecure about something that the other could never help with fixing.

Don’t you love long hugs?  Sure, I love getting hugs as long as I’m comfy around the one giving it.

And long kisses?  Mhm, they’re nice.

Have you ever purchased condoms?  Only for Angela when she had still been too shy to ask for it herself. 

Have you ever gone on vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend?  No. We had gone out of town for daytrips, but never for a fully-decked out vacation.

Have you ever trashed your ex’s car after an argument?  I wouldn’t do anything that loud. My resentment’s a lot more reserved and subtle, definitely on the passive-aggressive side.

Would you leave a note on a car claiming responsibility if you damaged it?  If I left like a paint scratch, no. If I was somehow stupid enough to manage wrecking the car then yes.

Have you ever used someone's handicapped parking pass to get a parking spot?  Oh that’s just gross. No. I do remember unknowingly parking over a spot meant for the handicapped once just because the paint was so fucking faded. It was genuinely so hard to tell but in the end I ended up just getting out of the spot and looked for another just to be on the safe, unassholey side.

Are you embarrassed to tell people your job?  Not at all! I love telling people I work in PR and sharing the brands I work with...it’s just a bitch trying to explain what exactly it is I do on a normal day. I’m still blanking out on it now that I’m thinking about it, haha. PR’s a challenge to summarize in one or two sentences.

If you ran over an animal would you keep driving?  I honestly have no clue how I’d deal with it. Ideally I would pull over and help bring it to the side of the road, and try to ask for help from passersby as well. I’m still not sure what I should/would do next.

Where’s the best place to eat a romantic dinner?  French, Spanish, and Italian restaurants always seem to carry a pleasant, date-y atmosphere to them, so any of those cuisines should be ok. I also like quieter restaurants with warm yellow lighting, since that makes me feel at home the most. The place definitely doesn't have to be super popular; I would just want for it to serve good food.

What hobby would you get into if time and money weren’t an issue?  Flying planes.

What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?  Probably something that’s booked with thrill-seeking adventures? Like a day of wakeboarding, paragliding, skydiving, riding an ATV...I would be exhausted as fuck and sleep for the next three days, but I can’t even begin to imagine how fun it would be.

When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with? Writing stuff. < Yeah, essentially. My friends ask me for general life advice too.

Has anybody criticized the way your significant other looked like?  Yeah. But I always defended her.

Have you written or drawn anything for somebody else?  I mean I’ve written long letters, but I haven’t made a poem or song for anyone.

Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?  These days it would probably be Arlan. He just finished his Masters in Journalism at Columbia and I couldn’t be more proud. I remember wanting to attend Columbia too, but seeing how my love of journalism turned out...I’ve long accepted the fact that that route was not meant for me, hahaha.

What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?  Finish a painting, which can also serve as a callout to me lol.

What would you rate 10/10?  Seafood.

What do you hope never changes?  My relationships with my best friends.

Would you ever have sex with the last person you texted?  No, I barely have a clue who she is and she seemed decades older when she called me up this morning.

Is there anyone that you’d love to just spill your guts to?  I’m good.

Where is the person you have feelings at right now? 

Are you happy with your relationship status?  Yessssssss. I love not having to worry about another person to spend on LOL

When did you last cry? What for?  Two Saturdays ago. The one-year mark of my breakup had been coming up and an overwhelming wave of emotions just flooded me all of a sudden, I guess. There was happiness and relief from not being stuck in it anymore; feeling sorry for myself as I remembered the turmoil and deterioration I went through in the latter part the year; anger for the shit she pulled; and there was also just the general feeling of being grateful that I’m still here after everything.

Do you think you’re wasting your time on the person you love? 

When’s the next time you’ll kiss someone?  No clue. I’m not holding my breath for it and that’s okay.

Were you ever scared to death of anyone you knew? Or are you currently?  Yeah, unfortunately I’ve always been surrounded by at least one person who terrifies me.

What’s the longest you’ve been away from home by yourself?  Nothing more than a day. That’s something I have yet to try out.

Have you ever been made fun of, because of what you look like?  Athenna was relentless in her insults. I dunno why I was friends her for as long as I was.

Have you ever made fun of others, because of what they look like?  If they’re some random person on the internet with disgusting political views, then yeah; but it’s just thoughts I keep in my head and I never verbalized the bullying. But not anyone in real life. Do you think it’s cute when you’re leaving a place, and a guy says “no hug?”  If I’m friends with the person I’ll banter with them for a bit until I give in for a hug. If it was any other guy I barely know...I would be disgusted and throw them the dirtiest glare.

Do you wear short shorts (if you’re a girl)? I didn't know short shorts were specific to females. < LOL same. Anyway no, not these days. I used to but they’re not really a part of my personal style anymore.

Who are you the most uncomfortable around?  Relatives with the wrong political views.

Who has your heart?  Nobody.

Should cloning ever be allowed to happen?  I don’t see the point. No.

Are you impatient with really shy people? If it gets to the point that they seem aloof and radiate very I-could-not-care-less-about-getting-along-with-any-of-you vibes, then yeah I feel like I would get irritated pretty fast. But I was an extremely shy person once too, so I’m typically friendly with them and I would usually be That person who constantly stays next to them so they feel like they belong.

Does your house have air conditioning throughout, or do you have one that sits in your window?  It sits in the window, as with most households here.

What is the most ridiculous band name you’ve heard recently?  I haven’t encountered anything wacky recently.

Would you ever get a fashion mullet?  No.

Do you believe that Jesus lived and is returning?  No.

Do you believe in spiritual gifts?  No.

Do you believe in callings?  Not really, no.

If you were rich, would you get a professional photoshoot done?  Hell no. I get extremely sheepish in front of a camera and a thousand times worse at posing.

#survey #surveys

[tcpimpabutterfly]

SEND ME AN AU AND ILL TELL YOU WHAT MY MUSE WOULD BE LIKE IN IT

Status: Accepting

@streetsofsecrets​ said: bioshock for bella. munroe too ;o; also mafia ii/iii for whoever!

You already know Bella’s nosey self got wind of Rapture some way somehow and managed to wiggle her way in there. I feel like she found a way to get smuggled in illegally because she’s just always taking the risky route.

Of course, she continued her journalism shenanigans and she only had a handful of devoted readers for a minute but her notoriety really picked up in the midst of the civil war. She’s Bella, she had to give the people the truth and her unwarranted opinion because her journalistic integrity is just strong like that. She caught the attention of Jack and he didn’t even hesitate to send a hit out on her, but she survives it because she’s built different like that.

Instead of letting anyone know she’s okay she decides it’s too risky to continue on how she was, so she fakes her death and goes into hiding. But she can’t just not write, she’d die of boredom! But she also can’t let people know she’s alive because they’ll for sure make sure she’s dead this time, so she writes under an alias; Nicki Cod. Why that name? I have no idea, but people don’t care anyways they still eat her writing up anyway. They don’t even care that nobody has ever seen this mysterious ‘Nicki Cod’ or that she just popped up out of nowhere.

As for Munroe, he doesn’t even live in Rapture! Or at least he didn’t use to. He had plugs and connects down in Rapture who would smuggle him ADAM and things alike and in return he would supply them with their regular degular drugs from the surface that they missed like cocaine. He stayed on the top doing what needed to be done and running his newspaper company and they stayed down there doing whatever it was they were doing.

He just so happened to go down there ONCE because something had went awry and because he lowkey wanted to see what it was like down there. And it just so happened that he went at the worst possible time ever; in the midst of the civil war.

He didn’t care about what was going on, who was in the right, or none of that !!! But, he did have a biasness already towards Fontaine since that’s who he was doing business with mainly so he just went ahead and joined forces with him. Because he has the resources down in Rapture, he plays around with ADAM a lot and comes up with new strands every now and then. Some are goofy like “You’ll grow a 6th toe and finger!” While others are actually helpful like....idk something that would be helpful that the game doesn’t already have.

OOOOOH FOR MAFIA II/II THO (but under a read more because I feel like this post is already kinda long):

In her Mafia III AU, Cynthia isn’t married to Leonel at all or even with him. The only child they have together is Smiley and that was kinda a whoopsies on Cynthia’s end. She doesn’t own her own lad either, instead she works in the lower basement part of Olivia’s lab with other people of color as well actually doing scientific things and not making PCP. She transfers intel to Bear Donnelly who then gives it to Lincoln because she’s tired of white people and all these mob-affiliated people!! Once Lincoln takes over he puts the lab in her hands and as an middle ground type agreement, she allows half of the lab to still be used for racketing while the other half is hers.

Naomi’s Mafia III verse is very similar to her Bioshock verse eeexxxcceeeppptttt that she’s still under Dominic’s management in this verse. She’s more of a local celeb and spends most of her days in the French Ward performing at various clubs and basically a spy for the Amicis/Marcanos. They tried to branch her out and had her perform at the fancy little club that I forgot the name of, but the audience rejected her, and it was a kinda traumatic night all around so now she sticks to being something like a city celebrity while they use her voice for another “singer” so their label can be mainstream.

You know that jewelry shop Vito and Joe we’re robbing in the beginning of the game? Yeah, that was Elijah’s. Well at the time it was his dad’s and it prompted him to enlist in the help of the local mafia to help protect their shop from anything else like that happening. Elijah was young when it happened, probably around a teen or tween, so unlike his main verse he grew up around organized crime. He wouldn’t consider himself a gangster, but he’s more hands on with this verse and helps out with more serious favors more often. And now that he’s older taking care of the shop? It’s like a crime hotspot and despite them being the ones who robbed the store all those years ago, he’s good friends with Joe & Vito and gives them intel every time they come snooping around or he’ll let em use his shop for whatever.

Leonel has some roots in Mafia II, but he doesn’t really sprout until Mafia III due to him being a teen in Mafia II’s timeline. His dad is the godson of the don because I said so. Despite this very important connection to the don, he’s really just street rat and minor gangster title, doing hooligan activities with his brothers, up until things start going haywire. Just when he started getting tasked with doing serious shit, like killing influential people type serious, his mom and dad decided to up and leave to New Bordeaux because they knew the chances of them dying were high out in Empire Bay.

#I can go on and on but I feel like I’m writing too much smsndkdndm #also kinda vague stuff for Mafia 2 because I really haven’t played that full game in YEARS #( ANSWERED ASKS. ) #( BELLA ANSWERED ASKS. ) #( MUNROE ANSWERED ASKS. ) #( NAOMI ANSWERED ASKS. ) #( CYNTHIA ANSWERED ASKS. ) #( ELIJAH ANSWERED ASKS. ) #streetsofsecrets

[ssttitdramon]

Ready To Hear It?

Ramón Morales x Stella Nicholls

Request: Ramón x Stella thing where Ramón comes back from the war and Stella confesses her feelings to him and idk what else to put

Word Count: 2,769

Note: Sorry that I posted this later than promised. You might’ve just wanted a Ramón x Stella moment, but the thought of the three in college, letters from Ramón in Vietnam, and Ramón’s family was something stuck in my head so I included all of that too. If you’d like to send in a request, take a look at the rules.

Also: The random u.s. state generator gave me Texas so that’s where he’s from in this fic (M.G. is actually from there btw!) and I made up family members because the ssttitd writers really didn’t give us much on Ramón’s backstory.

Warning: Brief mentions of the Vietnam war, including an injury/surgery (left hand + broken ribs)

Stella riffled through her backpack once again, checking that she had everything she needed before leaving to Texas. Two years after Ramón left for Vietnam, he came back on a stretcher with three broken ribs and on the verge of losing his left hand. 

According to his sister, Elizabeth, he was finally home from the hospital a week and a half later, recovering from a broken hand and lower rib removal surgery. 

When Stella received the first phone call from Elizabeth, she and Auggie were in the middle of flipping through flashcards for an upcoming major government test. The knocking on her door woke up Chuck, who was passed out on the floor and tried to reach for it.

Stella beat him to it first, opening the dorm door to the bossy redheaded RA, “Yeah?" 

"There’s an Elizabeth on the phone for you down there.” she scrunched her face at the sight of Auggie and Chuck in the room.

Stella turned to look at them, both shrugging. The boys still followed Stella downstairs and stood close by, trying to figure out who the mysterious Elizabeth was.

“Hello?”

“Ah hi, Stella Nicholls?” answered the quiet voice from the other end.

“Yes, this is she. May I ask, who are you?” Stella asked, looking over to the two boys in confusion.

“Oh, I’m Ramón’s sister. He gave me your number some months ago, but I wanted to let you and your friends know that Ramón is back home now and-” her voice cracks and she sniffs, “I’m sorry. He’s injured, but he’s okay.” she manages.

Stella was stunned, “Ramón is back…” she said softly, trying out the words in her own mouth. Stella was afraid saying it any louder would somehow make it false.

“What?” Auggie and Chuck snap in unison, getting closer to the girl.

“Ramón is back.” Stella declared, bringing her hand up to her mouth. “Wait, so he’s injured? Have you seen him?" 

"No, he came in four days ago and is held up at the hospital. They won’t tell us more, but we’ll get to see him tonight.” Elizabeth answered her, voice shaking and on the verge of tears. She couldn’t help but to think about her older brother, she lost him and can hardly handle the thought of losing another brother too.

Stella quickly thanked her for thinking of them and asked to be called for any more news on his recovery. When she hung up, the three were all silently staring at the phone, no one knew how to react. 

“So Ramón’s back? How is he?” Auggie broke the silence, eyeing his friend carefully.

As Stella started to explain the call, she didn’t realize she was tearing up until Chuck wiped her cheek with his sleeve. She pulled the boys in for a hug, the three letting themselves wallow in a pit of emotions. 

Now, while she was packing up to visit him, she couldn’t stop the onslaught of questions she’s already mulled over since the first call. 

How much has the war changed him? How is his family dealing with his return? How different could he be now since he last wrote? Is he in a lot of pain? What if he doesn’t want to see us? 

She frowned at the last one, she couldn’t think like that now. Not when the three were practically invited by his family with his consent. Plus, Chuck finally convinced his roommate to let the trio borrow his car and make the 20+ hour drive to Houston, Texas.  

As Stella walked over to her shelf to grab her journal, the metal tin box containing all of Ramón’s letters caught her eye. Her heart jolted, she opened it up and peered inside, feeling warmth at the sight of the boy’s slanted, tall handwriting. On the nights when Stella had panic attacks, she would open the box and read over bits and pieces of Ramón’s day, finding comfort in his letters.

Stella flipped through some of the trifolded letters, catching random sentences from the top of the papers,

“My mom finally wrote back and she’s not mad at all, I forgot how much I missed her worrying over me…” 

“You’re not much of a flower girl, are you? Here’s this neat flower I pressed, the villagers around here call it Hoa Dao-“

“Sorry it’s been so long, the sky’s been pouring buckets on us in the past month and we’ve only…" 

"Tell Chuck I won’t be able to write him back until next week, but tell him I said congratulations for winning…”

“but I might go to Japan for R&R in a few months,”

“My dad’s still learning English and he’s practicing some on his letters. It’s the best thing seeing chiquillo next to ‘today I took your sister to the tienda y ya ni la hacen aquí, mijo-’” 

“I’m telling you, you’ll be a famous writer. You’ll be selling out all over the world, just wait.”

“oh and there’s this guy here who laughs just like Auggie.”

“This one will be short, the Sgt just got back and already complaining about one grain of sand too many inches to the right- the boys here call him Ol’ Knuckles,”

“Also, remind Chuck to add 5th platoon to my address,”

“but the package that my sister sent me lasted a good two days because-”

“and he had to tackle this stupid scrawny kid to the ground as soon as the dirt started kicking up,” 

“the team did lose two men before we got there though, they left a rosary behind and I didn’t even notice there was a-”

What if I tell him?

That’s a question she’s been avoiding, but it still managed to pop up out of nowhere. Stella never really figured out when she started to have strong feelings for Ramón. Maybe it was when they were running around Mill Valley together trying to figure out the Bellows girl. Maybe it was in the midst of writing back and forth, finding ease in his words. Stella felt silly, she knew she liked him the minute she barged into his car at that drive-in, but she did not expect for the small crush to stick around for that long.

Stella felt conflicted with the idea of confessing to her first real crush. What if he could only see the two as friends while she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him for the past two years? Plus, Ramón just came back from Vietnam and if she considered the stories of those who have come back, would he even care about something like this right now?

She felt her heart twitch at the thought of Ramón’s head still stuck on the other side of the Pacific.

The knock on her door snapped Stella out of her thoughts. Putting the box back on the shelf, she grabbed her journal and went out to Chuck. He flashed her a goofy smile and dangled his roommate’s car keys by the fingers, “I’m driving first, already argued with Auggie about it and it’s settled.” 

The drive to Texas was a long one, the three would switch between driving, reading off from the map and sleeping in the backseat. The first time Auggie was on the wheel, they accidentally veered off course because Chuck apparently doesn’t know how to hold a map. The pair argued in hushed voices, but Auggie’s frustration still woke up Stella. She groggily pushed her way up front and looked over the map, commenting on Chuck’s great sense of direction. Immediately, she pointed her finger at the new route they found themselves in and flopped back down.

In a small town where they stopped to get gas, a couple of middle school students were playing baseball in a nearby field and nearly missed the car’s windshield by an inch. In a split second, Stella was having to hold Chuck back from freaking out on them and had Auggie throw the ball back to the apologetic kids. 

Later that night at a lonely rest stop’s restroom, the boys rushed out of there swearing up and down the men’s room was haunted. “Stella, I’m telling you, the only flickering light was the one in the last stall. We were washing our hands and we suddenly heard shaky humming from there, with no one inside.” Chuck widened his eyes and wiggled his fingers at Stella. 

The tall grass that surrounded the rest stop waved about from the light wind, seeming to make waves towards the woods. As the three looked beyond the pasture, following the waves into the trees, they could barely make out several tall, slender figures in the moonlight at the edge of the woods.

“Those are just tree trunks right?” Auggie asked quietly, until one of the “tree trunks” seemed to let itself glide back like a blade of grass from the wind.

“Alright, I believe you.” Stella admitted as the three rushed into the car, she began to pull out of the parking lot, “I’m so not dealing with this shit again.” 

They drove a few towns over before agreeing to stop at another rest stop that wasn’t completely abandoned and slept in the car for a few hours.

Once they reached the Louisiana-Texas border, Auggie and Stella kept their eyes peeled as they drove an hour into Houston. They managed to find Ramón’s house after passing by it twice and knocked on his door.

Elizabeth welcomed them in, “Hey, my parents are out right now, but Ramón’s awake upstairs.” she noted, closing the door behind them.

Chuck and Auggie immediately noticed the wall of family pictures by the entrance. Elizabeth was quick to point out Ramón’s baby pictures and mentioned the charming resemblance between him and their older brother. Stella looked closer at the image of Ramón and his siblings at a pool before following Elizabeth upstairs.

They stopped at the first white door to the right and lightly knocked, “Ramón, your friends are here.” 

After hearing his “come in”, she opened the door to see Ramón sitting on his bed, occupied with his younger brother. The toddler was too distracted with his plastic dinosaurs to notice the visitors, only looking up when Ramón stopped playing with him and finally noticed everyone at the door.

“Vente,” Elizabeth held her arms out to the small boy, “en un rato juegas con Món.”

The toddler hesitated with leaving Ramón, but after getting his older brother’s go-ahead he walked over to Elizabeth’s arms. The two disappearing into the hallway.  

“Món?” Chuck asked cheekily as Ramón carefully got up.

“Mateo can only pronounce Món and it stuck,” Ramón smirked, “also, I can’t hug you entirely, so you’ll have to do with my right side.” he informed, getting closer to the three.

Stella was the first to hug him, careful with his left side as she buried her face into his shoulder, “If either of you start crying, I’ll start crying too.” Ramón jokingly warned, hand stroking her hair. 

“You hear that, Chucks?” Auggie nudged Chuck’s arm before hugging Ramón.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll start bawling for our guy here any minute now.” Chuck quipped before turning serious, “No really, we missed you dude.” 

“Me too Chucks, even when your letters would keep on ending up miles away from me.” Ramón pulled Chuck in. 

The four settled on his bed, catching up with him for hours into the afternoon. Chuck even took the liberty of drawing on his small arm cast, “Does your hand hurt?” he asked, doodling himself onto the white. 

“Right now it doesn’t, mostly numb thanks to the pills. I still don’t know when I’ll be able to move it and use it.” Ramón noted as Stella grabbed another marker and started to draw a dragon onto his cast.

When Ramón’s parents came home, they invited the three to stay for dinner. Despite the awkward communication and Auggie’s choppy Spanish, they were all comfortable at the table. Most of all, Stella felt content with Ramón sitting next to her and seeing him with his family. Even considered confessing her heart out later that night, but she was still anxious about his reaction. 

After hearing that the trio planned on staying at a hotel for the night, Mr. and Mrs. Morales did not like the idea. “En un hotel? No, como crees. Diles que por lo menos se queden aquí esta noche y ya ven si se van a un hotel mañana.” Mrs. Morales told her daughter, eyes darting between the three. 

“Mija, deja que se duerman en tu cuarto, tú te vas con Ramón.” Mr. Morales added.

Elizabeth smiled, “My parents want the three of you to consider staying here at least for tonight. You guys can sleep in my room, there are two beds there.” she translated. 

Chuck’s eyebrows shot up, “Really? There’s no trouble?” he asked.

“Nah, you guys are fine. My other sister, Ana, is out of town this week and Elizabeth will sleep in my room.” Ramón assured. 

The three thanked Mr. and Mrs. Morales with an awkward, but genuine “gracias”. Chuck and Auggie even got up to help Mrs. Morales gather and take the dishes to the kitchen, much to Ramón’s amusement. Left alone at the table, Ramón and Stella decided to go back upstairs with Mateo on her hip. 

Ramón went into the restroom, took out a bottle of pills from behind the mirror and started to brush his teeth, “Ever since the surgery I’ve been getting tired easily and these pills knock me out.” he explained. “Won’t be able to stay up with you.”

“It’s no problem, we need some sleep too.” Stella let Mateo down once he nudged at her arm to get down. 

I should tell him now.

There it was again, she pondered over confessing as she followed him into his room. For a while, the two were deep in conversation on his bed until he started to drift off, “Sorry if I just fall asleep on you.” he apologized with a small smile.

“Ramón, I…” Stella hesitated, biting her lip. Ramón’s eyes fluttered open a bit, trying to listen to anything else she had to say.

As Ramón’s eyes grew heavy, Stella tried again. “I think I…” she began, hands fidgeting on her lap. “I think I’m in love with you.” she whispered, it was finally out but Ramón was already asleep. 

The next morning as everyone went downstairs for breakfast, Ramón winked at Stella and pulled her close for a hug, “Good morning, how did you sleep?” he asked with a raspy voice.

“Alright, you?” she chirped, the idea of him having heard her last night racing through her head.

“I actually slept pretty well, no nightmares. Think it helps that you’re all here.” Ramón smiled, not knowing what he was doing to the poor girl’s heart. “Tonight, you, Auggie and Chuck should stay in my room to keep the jungle away for another night.” he added.

After breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Morales rushed to work, promising everyone they’d come home early. Everyone settled to watch TV in the living room except Elizabeth, who had already secured plans with her friends. 

“Mateo’s fine with four babysitters today, huh?” Elizabeth commented, carrying the toddler over to Chuck and Auggie’s place on the couch. The two kept the smaller boy laughing by mocking the voices of characters from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! on screen. On the other couch, Ramón and Stella sat close with his right arm over her shoulders, hand mindlessly playing with her hair. 

Once the three boys tired themselves out from imitating random noises from the TV, they fell asleep with Mateo sprawled out over the older boys. Stella took the opportunity to tell Ramón how she felt, again.

“Ramón, last night in your room.” she recalled, feeling his gaze on her. “I told you something I don’t think you heard.” 

“I heard you, Stella.” Ramón nodded, “I can tell it’s hard for you, but I know what you said last night.” he kissed her temple reassuringly.

“Yeah, it’s hard but I feel like I need to make myself clear.” Stella explained, finally turning to look at him.

Ramón shook his head, “That’s okay, every time I got your letters it would become more and more clear. I feel like I’m the one who hasn’t made myself clear,” he cooed. Hearing that, Stella felt her heart at ease.

“Ready to hear it?” he asked with a knowing smile. 

Before he continued, Stella spontaneously began to pepper kisses all over his face, drawing out a soft giggle from Ramón.

*Feedback is always welcome!*

#ramon morales #scary stories to tell in the dark #ramon morales x stella nicholls #stella nicholls #august hilderbrandt #chuck steinberg #ssttitd #mine #when you do a bunch of vietnam war research #and not even half of it makes it on the work -_- #the ssttitd writers did ramon dirty tho omg #he's got a brother and he ran away :) no :) further :) questions :)

[minijenn]

Water Pines: Dead in the Water (Part 1)

AHAHAHAH OH FUCK THE ANGST TRAIN IS HERE And yeah lemme just warn ya’ll that this one? Is fucking ANGSTY and SAD as fuck. So... if ya aint into that you probably won’t like this one cause there’s like, no fluff to be found here whatsoever. But yeah anyway, for those of you who don’t remember what Water Pines AU is all about cause we never talk about it around here anymore, its basically the AU where Dipper makes an ill-informed deal with Bill that results in him literally switching places with Lapis, so he gets turned into a gem and stuck with Jasper while Lapis is freed and turned into a human. Imo if you need more info on it (and wanna see some art I drew up for it way back when) feel free to check this out. And finally, I should inform you that this is a two parter and idk when I’ll actually get around to writing part 2 but I got burnt out trying to make it one part so yah, basically what ya see is what ya get until I eventually write the second part. And so with that stupidly long explaination outta the way, let’s get onto the PAIN! 

Dead in the Water (Part 1) 

“Ya know, Pine Tree,” Bill casually continued his appeal, an appeal that Dipper had no intentions of taking seriously, though out of morbid curiosity, he halfheartedly listened nonetheless as he watched the laptop continue to steadily tick down. “What happened to Water Wings is just plain tragic, it really is. I mean, just think about it: she’s locked down there at the bottom of that grimy lake, having just a grand old time duking it out with Stripes and spending every waking moment in an endless sea of misery and torment and its all—your—fault!”

“Don’t remind me…” Dipper muttered despondently, guiltily glancing over at the pile of photos of him and Lapis. Reminders of peaceful, happy times that only existed in the distant past now, times that certainly would never come to be ever again. Unless…

“But as ‘sad’ as it all is, kid, I could fix it all up for you, nice and easy!” Bill quipped, his tone as bright and deceptively cheery as ever. “And luckily for you, I’m willing to let you off by only asking for something small in return; in fact, you won’t even notice the difference!”

“You still haven’t bothered to tell me what that ‘something’ is, by the way,” Dipper remarked, sending the dream demon a distrustful glare.

“Huh, guess you do have a point there,” Bill shrugged. “Alrighty then, what I want from you, Pine Tree, is something sooooo easy that I’m sure you won’t even have time to think twice about it once the deal is sealed! And that something is… drumroll please!” At this, the demon snapped his fingers, materializing a self-rolling snare drum out of thin air before making his supposedly daunting proclamation, which ended up being not so apparently daunting at all. “I want you to stay out of my way!”

“Wait… what?” Dipper asked, largely caught off guard by this confusing request.

“You heard me, kid!” Bill said succinctly. “All your ‘mystery hunting’ this summer has gotten you way to close to some answers that you shouldn’t be finding, cause if you did, it’d just about ruin everything I’ve been planning for centuries now. But instead of coming up with some sort of cockamamie scheme to, oh, I don’t know, hijack your body and use it to destroy that journal of yours before flinging your empty skin off the water tower or some hypothetical screwball plan like that, I decided I’d save a whole lot of time and effort by cutting this problem off at the source! So all I’m really asking here is for you to put the breaks on all your little investigations and let me have my fun. See? I told you it was something simple!”

“Hold it so… you… just want me to stop looking into the mysteries of Gravity Falls?” Dipper frowned, still bewildered by how straightforward this all seemed. “And that’s… it?”

“Well, that’s mostly it,” Bill shrugged nonchalantly. “There’s… another small little tidbit in this contract too, something that’ll make sure you keep up your end of the bargain.”

“And… that something is…?”

“Aw, come on, Pine Tree, you don’t want me ruining all my surprises, do you?” Bill asked coyly. “Let’s just say you can expect a bit of a… change, but I’m sure you’ll get used to it eventually! Plus… at this point its just about your only sure-fire way to dredge poor Water Wings up out of both that fusion and that lake. After all, you don’t even know if that dusty old laptop over there could even help anything at all, so why not go with the safer route? I’m sure if she were in your place, Water Wings would do the same thing for you—oh wait! She basically already did by trapping herself down there with Stripes. Don’t you think its about time you returned the favor, kid?”

It was, it really was, and this was something Dipper had felt from the very moment he realized that Lapis would be trapped in that lake possibly forever if nothing was done to rescue her. And up until now, that was an effort he hadn’t found too much hope in, his spirits dropping every time he so much as thought of the blue Gem, struggling and suffering all because of her clear, devoted dedication to him. Dedication that Dipper largely felt undeserving of, for he knew he hadn’t really demonstrated it towards her in return. And yet… now he could, in such a simple, easy way too. True, he loved investigating the boundless, incredible wonders to be found in Gravity Falls, and he knew with every one he uncovered, he drew closer to unraveling the entire mystery that was the town and its baffling strangeness. But at the same time, Lapis had become one of the best and closest friends he had ever come to know in the short time that they had together. Her sacrifice for him alone was proof enough of that. And it was a sacrifice that Dipper felt more than ready to honor by making one of his own, if only it meant that they could finally be together in safety, happiness, and freedom once more.

And so, that’s exactly what he did.

Dipper saw no point in exchanging any more deliberation on the matter as he watched Bill extend a hand out in offering, unnatural blue flames sparking around it. He hesitated, only briefly, upon remembering the dream demon’s warning that there was another element to this purposed deal, but from how he had made it sound, it didn’t seem like it was anything too drastic or important. And even if it was, then certainly liberating Lapis from her longtime prison would make whatever that unknown addendum was worth it.

Right?

“So, Pine Tree? Do we have a deal?” Bill asked almost goadingly, calm in the assurance that he had his young, unwitting pawn right where he wanted him.

Keeping his manner steady and resolved, Dipper only nodded, taking in a deep breath before he carefully met the demon’s hand and shook it, solidifying their bargain once and for all. “Alright, fine,” Dipper said sternly as he looked to Bill rather coldly. “No more mystery hunting. Now fulfill your end of the deal and save Lapis.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Pine Tree, I already got that one covered!” Bill exclaimed with a mischievous chuckle as the flame encompassing both their hands suddenly grew brighter. “But in the meantime, there’s still the matter of the other half of your end of things…”

“M-my… wha-” Dipper barely had any time to get anything out before his voice caught in a startled gasp, his eyes growing wide and his body still and rigid as he felt a sharp pain course through it. In fact, so great was this pain that it ended up completely incapacitating him, to the point that he couldn’t even cry out for help or for a release from it. In a way, it almost felt like all of his cells were violently tearing apart, or better yet, that they were burning, glowing even, but in the worst way possible. Amidst this torrent of unstoppable agony, he hadn’t even registered the dream demon’s incredibly amused and sadistic laughter ringing in his deafening ears, nor did he notice the pale white light ripping away at every part of him, effectively disintegrating him until there was nothing left at all. His consciousness was the last thing to fade away, but before it did, the last thing he heard was the triumphant teasing of the demon who had so easily tricked him with a promise that had ended up resulting in what must have been his own complete and utter destruction.

“See ya, Pine Tree! Hope you enjoy your new digs! Oh, and be sure to send Stripes my best! I’m sure she’s just gonna love to see you!”

The very first thing Lapis felt before awakening was a stark, sudden beating inside her own chest. In fact, the sensation was so strange and alarming that it only seemed to quicken, to the point that it ultimately ended up tearing her right back into consciousness. She let out a gasp, her eyes opening wide as she felt the air fill in another part of her chest, the beating continuing rapidly as she found herself in need of even more air, which she took in heavily as she tried to make sense of what was happening to her.

Despite her effective hyperventilating, Lapis was able to focus enough to notice that whatever surface she was lying on wasn’t anything remotely similar to the darkened, drenched, despair of Malachite’s mindscape that she had grown so accustomed to over the past several weeks. Instead, the surface below her was hard yet warm, crisp, red light pouring in from an unseen source and illuminating a wooden ceiling above her. Disconcerted, Lapis slowly began to pick herself up to get a better look around, though she stopped short upon catching a glance of her arm. Her pale, fleshy, not blue arm.

“Augh!” Lapis cried, grasping her wrist as she glanced over the rest of her form. The usual blue coloration of her dress was apparently no more, replaced by a mix of navy, orange, and grey, and upon pulling a lock forward, she found that her hair had somehow turned a shade of chestnut brown. “W-what… what is this?” she muttered to herself, her brow furrowing as her breathing and the beating in her chest gradually slowed to a normal, natural tempo.

She didn’t have too much of a chance to wonder what had happened or where she was, however, before she noticed something lying on the ground right beside her: a blue and white hat with a tell-tale print of a pine tree on it. An article Lapis immediately recognized, to the point that even picking it up and holding it close made her ache with both regret and with a curious sense of hope as she took another look around.

“D-Dipper?” she ventured, her voice small at first, especially as she failed to find the boy anywhere in the immediate vicinity. “Dipper, a-are you here?” she asked again, feebly rising to stand only to find herself strangely unsteady. All the same, she clung onto the hat, a spark of terror and dread filling her as she realized this place, whatever it was, was surprisingly bereft of Jasper. Regardless to the bizarre alteration of her form, certainly she had to still be part of Malachite, which meant that her orange adversary couldn’t be too far, right?

Lapis shook her head, steadying herself as her expression filled with resolve. If she was indeed still Malachite, and if Dipper, of all people, had managed to find his way into their incredibly toxic mindscape, then she knew her mission, above all else, had to be to protect him from Jasper’s wrath and bring him back to safety. Which meant that her starting step in doing so had to be finding him first.

And so Lapis picked herself up off the ground, her footing initially unsteady as she had to get used to being solely in control of her own form once more. Even so, she wasted no time in checking just about every single nook and cranny the room had to offer for any further sign of Dipper’s presence there, only to find none at all. As a result, an even deeper sense of worry filled her, one that was more than enough to prompt her to set out beyond the boundaries of the room to check elsewhere in the hopes of finally reuniting with him if nothing else. However, as she tentatively opened the door, she ended up reuniting with someone else entirely.

“S-Steven?!” Lapis gasped, her eyes wide as she caught sight of the young Gem standing right outside the door.

Startled, Steven gaped back up at her, his hand held up ready to knock on the now-opened door as he tried to make sense of exactly who was standing before him. “Uh… do I know you?”

“Of course you do!” Lapis exclaimed as though it was obvious, despite her new appearance. “It’s me: Lapis!”

“L-Lapis?!” Steven’s jaw practically hit the floor as everything connected for him, but sure enough, it did make sense. Save for her oddly familiar but markedly different coloration, the woman before him looked exactly like the blue Gem who had trapped herself at the bottom of the lake several weeks ago. “Wha—I don’t understand; how did you even get here?! When did you and Jasper unfuse? And… and why do you look so different?”

“Wait, wait, hold on, what?” Lapis shook her head, her eyes wide with surprise. “I… I’m not fused with Jasper anymore? But… but I thought…”

“Well… I’m pretty sure you’re not since you’re here,” Steven pointed out. “But what I wanna know is why you look like that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a human!”

“A human?” Lapis scoffed, crossing her arms. “Don’t be silly, Steven. I may not know how I got separated from Jasper or why I look like this, but if there’s one thing I do know, its that I’m still a Gem. See?”

At this, she turned around to show the young Gem the stone on her back, only for Steven to let out a stunned gasp at what he actually saw there. “L-Lapis…” he muttered, clearly shocked. “Your Gem… it… it’s gone!”

“What?!” Lapis frantically reached both of her hands to her back, feeling around desperately for her familiar teardrop-shaped gemstone, only to feel nothing but smooth, warm skin where it should have been. “H-how… what happened to it?! Where did it go, I-” She stopped short with a gasp, her eyes widening even more in a dawning, almost sickening form of realization. “N-no way…” she whispered, absolutely shaken by this revelation as she pressed her hand against her chest, only to feel what could only be a heart hammering away underneath it. “I-it can’t be… I… S-Steven… I think I really am a human…”

“B-but… how did you just turn into a human like this?!” Steven asked, just as frantic as Lapis was over this alarming news.

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, running a hand through her now brown hair. “One minute, I was keeping Malachite chained to the bottom of the lake, and then the next I woke up here and found-” Lapis interupted herself once more, remembering that she had much more important things to worry about aside from her shift in species as she glanced down at the hat still tightly trapped in her grip. “Dipper…” she whispered before hastily placing a firm hand on the young Gem’s shoulder. “Steven, where’s Dipper?”

“Wait, you mean he’s not in there?” Steven frowned, glancing past Lapis and into the otherwise empty attic. “That’s weird… Mabel sent me up here to find him, so… maybe he’s in another part of the shack? He’s been working really hard lately to try and find a way to save you, so I’m sure he’ll be really happy to see you!”

“H-he’s been trying to…” Lapis trailed off, letting out a sad sigh as she held the hat close to her chest. “Oh, Dipper…”

“H-hey, I’m sure once we find him, he’ll be able to help us figure out exactly what happened to you,” Steven reassured upon noticing Lapis’ obvious melancholy.

“R-right…” Lapis nodded in absent agreement, following after the young Gem as he led her through the rest of the shack. The two searched diligently for Dipper, with Steven claiming that it only made sense that he’d be somewhere in the building since that was the last place he had been seen heading to. And yet, despite their best efforts, neither of them managed to find him inside the shack whatsoever, leaving Lapis in a rather distraught state as she was filled with both dread over her new form as well as over Dipper’s whereabouts, which by all accounts, seemed to be completely unknown.

With their search of the shack completely exhausted, Steven and Lapis agreed to check outside for Dipper, just in case he had ended up slipping out of the house without anyone noticing somehow. And yet, instead of finding him, they managed to run smack dab into his twin instead as she was heading into the house carry a high-piled basket of sock puppet supplies, which was easily knocked out of her hands the moment her and Lapis accidentally collided.

“Hey!” Mabel huffed, disgruntled as sock and craft supplies spilled all over the floor. “Steven! What’s the big… idea…?” She trailed off, her jaw dropping as she watched the familiar figure beside the young Gem start to pick herself up off the ground to stand once more. At first, Mabel thought she was seeing things, because certainly there was no logical way she could be here like this; but sure enough, it seemed to be true, as completely unbelievable as it seemed.

“No way…” she muttered in amazement as she stared at the former Gem, her mouth gaped in awe. “Lapis?!”

“H-hey, Mabel,” Lapis greeted, offering the girl as much of a smile as she could, though it was clear her primary concern was still with finding Dipper. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It sure as heck has!” Mabel exclaimed, still completely awestruck. “How are you even here? And how are you all humany? And most importantly, does Dipper know? Cause if when he sees you he’s gonna freak out. I’m not even kidding, he’s been driving himself crazy looking for a way to save you and-”

“I-I know,” Lapis interjected, glancing down somewhat remorsefully upon hearing this. “Steven already filled me in. But we are looking for Dipper, if you’ve seen him anywhere.”

“Not since we-” Mabel quickly cut herself off, a worried look crossing her expressions as she looked down to the scattered sock puppets on the ground below and remembered the rather harsh words her and her brother had just exchanged only just a few moments prior. Words that, in light of Lapis’ sudden, unexpected, but still miraculous reappearance, seemed incredibly petty now, especially on her end of things. “Uh… never mind,” she said quickly, pushing several of the sock puppets away with her foot as she dropped her basket. “W-why don’t I help you guys look for him? Three heads are always better than two after all.”

“Are you sure, Mabel?” Steven asked with a frown. “I mean, your puppet show’s coming up really soon and you still have a lot to do to get ready for-”

“Eh, the show can wait for a sec,” Mabel interupted with a somewhat forced wave of her hand. “After all, I… I…” she trailed off, not particularly wanting to bring her bitter argument with Dipper up in front of Lapis, especially since said argument had largely centered around the former Gem in the first place. “I really wanna see the look on Dipper’s face when he sees you again, Lapis!” she intercepted, being both truthful and dodgy all at the same time. “Now come on, let’s go find him!”

“Right,” Lapis nodded firmly, crouching down a bit, almost as if she was anticipating something. Steven and Mabel looked to her in confusion when nothing did end up happening, something that confused the former Gem even more, until she stole a glance behind her and let out a startled gasp. “M-my wings!” she cried, distraught as she stood properly. “W-why can’t I summon my wings!?”

“Uh… probably because you don’t have a Gem anymore,” Steven informed gently. “Humans can’t fly, Lapis. Well, at least not using water, that is.”

Lapis shook her head in disbelief at this, grief filling her expression over the loss of something she had always treasured so much. Her wings provided her with freedom, with a chance to escape to safety in an instant if the need arose. But now, they were gone and she was tethered to the ground, anchored almost just as much as she had been with Jasper at the bottom of the lake. The only difference now was that she was at the very least, no longer trapped within a prison of her own design with a cellmate she would have just as rather shattered than let survive. All the same, her lack of wings only added onto the several disconcerting discoveries she had made since awakening in her new human body. A worrisome change that she hoped could at the very least be eased upon finding the one she had given almost everything up for until now.

Since searching by air was out of the question, the trio split up, investigating the immediate woods around the shack on foot. Though Lapis was unfamiliar with the area, Steven and Mabel made an effort to venture out a bit further, their own respective concern for Dipper starting to rise upon catching not a single sign of him anywhere. From there, they decided to check in up at the temple, Lapis keeping her distance outside as the kids asked if any of the Gems had seen Dipper around, only for all three of them to offer sympathetic no’s. It was only after they decided to join in on the search themselves that they discovered Lapis and her now human condition, something that aptly shocked all three of them, though the former Gem had no interest in garnishing any help from them, except for when it came to looking for Dipper. As minutes turned into hours, Mabel decided to make a tough call and postpone her puppet show, knowing that, for the first time all week Gabe Bensen could wait; her brother was, by all accounts, apparently missing. And after putting him on hold all week for her own selfish pursuits, she wasn’t about to rest until she made things right, found him, and apologized for the lack of support she should have been providing him with all along.

As the sun began to sink across the forest, the Gems insisted that the kids finally check in with Stan, all of them hoping that he at the very least had some sort of clue as to where Dipper had run off to. The conman however, was simply quite surprised to hear that his nephew was missing alone, making it quite obvious that he was just as clueless as everyone else. After calling up Soos and Wendy, a rather sizable search party had been formed, one that forged on late into the night and stretched as far as the town boarders itself. And yet, despite their collective, valiant efforts, Dipper never seemed to show up anywhere, much to everyone’s immensely growing concern. It truth, it seemed as though he had disappeared completely out of nowhere, leaving only his hat behind, which Lapis hadn’t let go of since the moment she found it in the shack’s attic. Speaking of the former Gem, what struck most of the others as odd was that her sudden appearance seemed to perfectly coincide with Dipper’s abrupt disappearance. There was no question the two events were connected, but as to how and why, no one had the slightest clue. Even Garnet, with her future vision and all, was unable to foresee them locating the missing boy anytime soon. Still, that didn’t mean they were going to give up hope so easily; Lapis and Mabel in particular were both insistent on continuing the search until Dipper was found and brought home, safe and sound.

And yet in the midst of foraging through the darkened forest in the very late hours of the night, Lapis soon discovered another aspect of humanity that she had previously never experienced before: exhaustion. With each passing moment, it seemed as though her pace grew slower, her eyes grew heavier and her focus drifted away altogether, to the point that at one point she almost tripped over Steven, who was every bit as tired as she was. Upon realizing this and detecting the same sort of fatigue from Stan, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy, the Gems concluded that they would continue looking for Dipper while all of the humans headed home to bed so that they could be better rested up to help in the search tomorrow. Of course, there were protests all around concerning this as all of them did indeed want to find Dipper as soon as possible, but once Garnet put her foot down on the matter, there was no arguing with her about it.

And so everyone save for the Gems headed home for the night, their hearts equally heavy with worry and dread. After a healthy round of convincing and bribing Stan on Mabel’s part, Lapis was allotted to stay at the shack, with Steven sleeping over as well since the Gems would be out for the rest of the night. Together, the pair fashioned a makeshift air mattress bed for the former Gem to sleep on, though all the same she still really wasn’t quite familiar with the process of “sleeping” to begin with. Being a human was, at least from her perspective, a rather odd experience as a whole. Only just a few hours ago did she “eat” for the first time, with her first meal consisting of something Steven called “the bits” that he got from Gravity Fries downtown while they were searching around there. To Lapis’ surprise, she actually enjoyed the snack quite a bit, though she was somewhat anxious when Steven and Mabel informed her that eating was something she’d have to do regularly now that she was a human.

In fact, the reality that she was no longer a Gem but rather a human on its own was enough to keep her lying awake in bed even after Steven and Mabel had already fallen asleep. In the full moonlight streaming into the attic room, Lapis stared at her hand—her now flesh-covered, pale, human hand—as she let her thoughts wander. How did something like this even happen? How had she been torn away from Jasper and put here, of all places? How long was she going to stay like this? Was it ever possible for her to return to her original form? And most importantly, the question that had been largely plaguing her all day, even about her own concerns about herself: where could Dipper have gone to? The former Gem couldn’t deny that her now human heart ached whenever she thought of the mysteriously missing boy, the boy who, even during her own self imposed imprisonment in the lake, she had missed so very much each and every day. Lapis couldn’t deny that she wanted to see him, probably even more than she wanted to be a Gem once again. As far as she was concerned, thoughts of anything else other than finding him and bringing him home could wait. To know that he was safe and sound and where he belonged would be more than enough to set her worried mind at ease. Which was why, as she slowly drifted off into her first fitful, fretful slumber, the last thing on the former Gem’s mind was the warm reassurance Steven had offered both her and Mabel just a few hours prior. A reassurance she hoped more than anything would come true:

“Don’t worry! I’m sure we’ll end up finding Dipper tomorrow!”

Except they didn’t. They didn’t find him then, or the next day, or even anytime in the days or weeks after that.

And when they finally did find him, he was in the last place any of them had ever thought to look.

Earlier…

A flash of blinding light sparked from the depths of Lake Gravity Falls, completely filling its empty surface, though no one was around to see it. Likewise, no one was around to see the tiny, squarish blue stone drop into its murky waters from seemingly out of nowhere, sinking lower and lower, down towards the bottom of the deep lake on its own accord. For a moment or two, fish occasionally flocked to it, investigating the odd, dully shimmering gem until, out of nowhere, light began to explode from it, scaring the sealife away as a small humanoid shape began to form around it. The light took on a bright blue pigment as it began to define its previously amorphous form, with clothes and features taking shape as the gemstone found its place upon its forehead. And, with another flash of solidifying light, the radiant glow disappeared, once again sending the lake depths in obscuring darkness and leaving a small, singular figure floating in its place.

Upon regaining some sense of cognizance and feeling, the very first thing Dipper did was abruptly open his eyes, taking in a sharp gasp the moment he did, only to inhale a large mouthful of water instead of air. As panicked and disoriented as he already was, his first instinct was to panic at the thought of drowning, flailing about as he floated just above the lakebed, neither rising towards the top nor sinking to the bottom all the while. It was only as he unintentionally ended up taking in more water that he noticed something both relieving and alarming; he wasn’t drowning. In fact, it seemed as though he was somehow able to breathe within the water just as easily as he could breathe air.

“W-what the…?” Dipper trailed off, whispering to himself as he began to curiously touch his throat only to stop short upon stealing a glance at his hand. For a brief moment, he thought it was simply a trick of the incredibly low light surrounding him on all sides, but upon a second glance, he realized that his hand was indeed somehow strangely blue as opposed to its normal pale pigmentation. He was quick to discover that everything else about him was some varying shade of deep blue too: from his skin, to his clothes, to his shoes, to even his hair as it covered what he found to be the most disconcerting of all: his birthmark. While it was usually mostly unnoticeable considering he kept it concealed so well, Dipper couldn’t hold back a soft gasp of surprise as he realized he could actually feel the copy of the constellation on his forehead, smooth and solid and almost… stone-like to the touch.

For a moment, Dipper took pause, his hand floating away from his birthmark as he tried to make sense of exactly where he was and what was going on. Surrounding him all around seemed to be a vast aquatic void, with only the occasional deepwater fish, plant, or sunken canoe to be spotted anywhere nearby. With nothing visual to go off of, the most Dipper could do was think back to how he might have ended up in a place like this when, as far as he knew, he had just been in the shack’s attic just a few minutes prior. The last thing he remembered was his own exhaustion amidst his endless attempts at trying to decode the laptop’s password, but that was it. He couldn’t recall falling sleep, which meant that there really wasn’t any chance of this being some sort of dream. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel as though he was missing an important piece here, a piece that, if he ended up actually remembering it somehow, could quite possibly explain both his unknown location and his bewildering condition at the same exact time.

However, instead of finding that missing piece, he soon found something, or rather someone else entirely. Or rather, they found him.

“YOU!” The outraged shout boomed across the lakebed, scaring off any fish that was even remotely in the vicinity. Dipper, on the other hand, froze up completely, his eyes going wide as the massive shadow of a Gem he had hoped to never encounter again fell upon him. Yet before he could fearfully spin around to face the vicious warrior, she did the job for him, unexpectedly grabbing him by the arm and wrenching him around roughly. Dipper had only a moment to register the thought that such a maneuver could have easy broken his arm entirely as he glanced up and shuddered with unconcealed alarm at the fact that he was now somehow face to face with none other than Jasper herself. “I know you,” the orange Gem growled, scowling fiercely at him all the while. “You’re her favorite little human pet, the one she wouldn’t stop thinking about while she kept me chained down here! So why are you here? And where is she?!”

“W-who?” Dipper dared to venture, his voice much smaller and more frightened than he had hoped it to be. “Lapis?”

“Who else?!” Jasper snapped hotly, her already inescapable grip on his wrist tightening. “Up until a few minutes ago the two of us were fused, just like we’ve been for weeks now. And then all of the sudden you show up and she disappears! What’s going on here?!”

“I-I don’t know!” Dipper answered truthfully, confused just as much as he was terrified. In fact he was so disoriented that he barely even registered an essential part of what Jasper had just said, namely that her and Lapis had been fused. Which meant that, even though it was really beyond all sense of logic, they weren’t fused anymore. “I was just-”

“Quiet!” the orange Gem barked harshly, giving the unfortunate boy in her grip a violent shake. “I don’t know where she thinks she gets off, just running off after everything she did and leaving you behind to-” Jasper cut herself off, her confusion with the unfolding situation seeming to grow as she noticed something that only seemed to anger and disgust her even more. “What is that?”

“W-what?” Dipper tried to glance up at whatever it was Jasper was pointing at, only to find that she was oddly referring to him. Or rather, to his forehead.

For a moment, Jasper didn’t answer, opting to finally relinquish her tight hold on Dipper’s arm only to suddenly grasp his chin instead, still effectively holding him in place as she swept a bit of his hair up to find something that made her gasp in clear shock as she finally let go of him altogether. “You’re not a human!” she exclaimed, obviously baffled as she continued sending him the same bitter glare as before. “You’re a Gem!”

“Wha—no, I’m not!” Dipper countered, though he still lifted a curious hand up to his now tangible birthmark, wondering if Jasper might have somehow confused that for a gemstone somehow. But then again, his now oddly blue coloration, his strange, newfound ability to breathe underwater… both of these things seemed to speak to the contrary. Which in and of itself was an alarming possibility he didn’t even have time to think about as Jasper continued, apparently growing even more incensed by the second.

“I get it now…” the orange Gem growled coldly. “The little game you and her have been playing… the reason why she wanted to protect you so badly that she decided to trap me… You’re a Lapis Lazuli, just like her!”

“N-no!” Dipper tried to protest, knowing that such a claim was completely preposterous. “I’m-”

“Let me guess…” Jasper continued, her feet firmly planted on the lakebed as she marched closer towards him. While Dipper had the wits about him to wisely float backwards out of her immediate range, he was still largely too engulfed by fear to make a real escape attempt. “You two came out of the same Kindergarten, didn’t you? I know you Lazulis like to travel in flocks. So when she got stuck on this backwards planet, you were the only one of her kind still left around to take care of that mirror she was trapped in. Then, when she flew back here to warn you that we were coming, you tried to hide yourself by shapeshifting into that weak, pathetic form you’re in now, just like Rose did! But it didn’t work, because I’ve got it all figured out now...”

“No, y-you really don’t, trust me,” Dipper tried to clarify, though of course, in her ongoing anger and thirst for vengeance, she was hardly listening to him.

“And… since she took so much from me… and now that I know just how much you really mean to her…” A sly, almost sinister smile crossed the orange Gem’s face as she stood essentially towering over him menacingly. “I think its only fair that I return the favor and take something from her…”

Dipper didn’t even have a chance to ask what she could have meant by this before she suddenly latched onto his arm yet again, wrenching him upward before, surprisingly, spinning him around with almost a flare of what could have been mistaken for grace. She relinquished her hold on him for just the slightest second and in that second, he did all he could to try to swim away, only for her to pull him back down by his ankle before he could really make any progress at all. Once she had him back down, she began swiftly spinning them both around in something that almost seemed like a dance. And it was as Dipper realized this, that he realized with a burst of apt panic exactly what Jasper was trying to do.

“W-wait!” he cried as Jasper’s smug smirk only deepened at his obvious fear. “Don’t-”

“Go ahead and beg all you want, Lazuli,” the orange Gem hissed with a hateful sneer as she suddenly dipped him low, just as she had done with Lapis on the lake shore weeks ago. “I begged too, for weeks on end, in a futile attempt to escape her,” Jasper’s grin only deepened as the gemstone that was in the place of her nose began to take on a bright white glow. “But it never worked; if she had her way, she was going to keep me trapped down here forever. All because of you!” Dipper gasped in growing alarm as the same sort of glow began to pour from his birthmark, or, as he now realized with a sense of sickening shock, his gem. “Well now its your turn to see what that’s like. I hope you enjoy it, because just like she said, I’m never letting you go!”

With this final, fierce proclamation, she roughly pulled him towards her, a blinding light enveloping them both. While Dipper’s past experience with fusion was extremely limited, he knew that both times he had formed Stepper with Steven had felt absolutely nothing like this. With Steven, the act of fusion had felt warm, calming, even welcoming, even if the initial aftermath had been largely tremulous and uneasy. But with Jasper, fusion was anything but those things. It was like she was throwing him into a tight cage and throwing away the key. It was like she was anchoring him, weighing him down to the bottom of an ocean that, even with the ability to breathe underwater, he would surely drown in. It was like—no, it wasn’t like, it was her trapping him, locking him into something he wanted no parts of and desperately wanted to escape.

Which was why, even as the eventual fusion gained its form, it was screaming, half of it crying out for release while the other half simply laughed vindictively. As a result, their sharp-toothed maw split cleanly down the middle as their form solidified, resulting in two mouths, two sets of eyes, and six sets of arms, two of which acted as legs. Most everything about this fusion was monstrous, yet familiar, their coloration a mix of mangled, sickly greens and their build bulky, awkward, and uneven. Their white hair was a wild, untamed mess, their skin markings garish and garbled, and their newly-shared mind a complete and utter disaster as they both were forcibly plunged into its darkened depths.

As for the fusion themselves, they hardly faired much better as they were still caught in a chaotic flux of sadistic satisfaction and horrified anguish over the realization of the awful monster they had become. “Augh! L-let me go!” they screamed through one of their two mouths, their voices mangled together and uneven yet nightmarishly unified all the same. “Not a chance! Not until you see just how much she made me suffer because of you!”

At this unhinged declaration, the fusion, out of sheer desperation alone, reached up to the far off surface of the water far above them, hoping they could somehow breach it and alert someone, anyone to their horrific plight. Unfortunately, before they could even get anywhere close, a sudden chain, composed entirely of water, rushed up from the lakebed, latching onto both of their wrists and keeping them anchored heavily down to the ground itself.

“N-no! Stop! Please!” they begged, not even bothering to hide how outright terrified they were by this seemingly possible, absolutely miserable turn of events. “I-I already told you! I’m not a Gem! Hmph! You really are stupid if you think you can fool me again!” they sneered, yanking the chains back to force them down even more. “If you’re ‘not a Gem’ then how did we just fuse? I-I don’t know! I don’t even know what’s going on! P-please, I just want to—Ha! You really think I care about what you want?! The only thing I care about is making both you and her pay for what you both did to me! B-but I didn’t—QUIET!”

The fusion gasped as an entirely new set of watery manacles suddenly latched around both sets of their feet, pulling them down until they were basically tethered to the lakebed itself with no hope of escape whatsoever. “I’m done listening to what you have to say!” they barked harshly, so caught up in their lust for revenge that they didn’t even place any second thoughts or concerns with the other, absolutely panicking half of their ruinously shared mind as they essentially drowned him in the darkness of their fusion’s hatred altogether. “She might have tried to protect you, but she failed. You both failed! Because from here on out, you’re not a Lapis Lazuli or a human in disguise or anything else anymore.” At this, one of the fusion’s mouths leered into a sickening smirk while the other one quivered in pained whimpers, heartbroken tears starting to well up in two out of their four eyes as they began to sink, quite literally, into their unimaginable fate. “The only thing we are now is Malachite. So get used to it; because as long as I’m around to keep us together, that’s something that’s never going to change.”

The first few days and nights were, simply put, completely unbearable. True to her word, Jasper kept Dipper, and by extension, the newly-recreated Malachite tightly chained to both bottom of the lakebed as well as to the murky, inescapable depths of their now forcibly shared mind. And from the very moment his unexpected, nightmarish imprisonment began, Dipper wanted nothing more than some form of release from it. A release that seemed like it would never end up coming.

In fact, if there was any one word Dipper knew he could use to sum up his still relatively newfound existence as Malachite, then that word would be drowning. Largely because a majority of his time seemed to be spent doing exactly that in just about every sense of the word. He seemed to always in a state of constant drowning; drowning literally in the toxic waters of Malachite’s dark and desolate mindscape, drowning in the mire of hatred of the Gem who had cruelly trapped him in the name of her own vengeance, and drowning most of all in his own crippling, crushing fear that he’d never be able to escape, a fear that only steadily grew the longer it went on for.

In fact, the only times Dipper didn’t feel like he was drowning were the rare occasions when Jasper, for whatever reason, decided to dredge him up to the surface level of their forcibly shared mindscape. The orange Gem only ever did this for the sake of antagonizing her unfortunate hostage, by giving him a glimpse of the sparse rays of light that shined through the surface of the lake far above them, light that offered the elusive promise of hope and freedom. Promises that, Jasper would all to quickly remind him, he would never achieve again as she always ended up dragging him back down to their cripplingly cold subconscious, never even allotting him a single moment or inkling of any sort of control over their twistedly fused form whatsoever. In fact, he was lucky if she ever even let him have a word in edgewise against him, always callously brushing off all of his fierce, sometimes downright desperate attempts to fight back or resist against her. And yet, for as much as Jasper’s vengeful cruelty was starting to wear him down more and more, the worst part for Dipper by far, was that he essentially had no idea how he had even ended up in this seemingly unending waking nightmare to begin with.

In the agonizingly long stints of lonely drowning he had to endure, the question of why he was there at all was really the one Dipper was really able to grapple with. As chained as his hands were, he wasn’t really able to reach up to his forehead, but as far as he knew, there was a gemstone there, a gemstone that, by all accounts, apparently made him a Gem. The fact that he had been able to fuse with Jasper at all was proof enough of that, as disconcerting and alarming as the very thought. And yet how exactly he had somehow changed from human to Gem and wound up in the lake in Lapis’ place was a complete and utter mystery to him, one that, he believed if he could figure out the answer to, then perhaps he could begin to puzzle out how free himself from his current, miserable plight. The only problem was, he had no idea where to even start.

That is, until the day the normally lonely, dark corner of Malachite’s mindscape he now called home received the very last visitor he could have ever expected.

And what a surprise it certainly was for Dipper when, amidst floating miserably and silently in the dreary, empty darkness, a sudden sadistic, familiar cackle echoed through the water, sending heavy ripples throughout both it and the newly-turned Gem trapped within it. Ripples that turned into outright shock as a certain triangular demon suddenly materialized quite out of nowhere before him.

“Well, well, well, look at you, Pine Tree!” Bill exclaimed in bright greeting, startling Dipper quite a bit by his abrupt appearance. “Turns out you don’t make that shabby of a space rock after all, if I do say so myself. You’re still pretty shabby overall though; guess some things never change, even if your species does!”

It took Dipper a brief moment to break out of his relative alarm, but when he did, he was still rather baffled by his new, rather unwelcome ‘guest’ all the same. “B-Bill?! What… what are you doing here?”

“Aw, come on, kid, isn’t it obvious?” Bill asked, only for Dipper to shake his head in continued confusion. “Seriously? You don’t remember?” the demon pressed, almost surprised by this fact before letting out an exasperated groan. “Hmph. Guess I should’ve figured that suddenly having your entire human DNA rewritten into nothing a bunch of solid light molecules would scramble your brain up a little bit. Well, it would if you still technically HAD a brain anymore! But if you’re still in the dark (which you definitely seem to be right now) then let me refresh your memory for ya, Pine Tree!”

Surprisingly, true to his word, Bill did just that with a simple snap of his fingers, one that sparked a brief, bright glow in Dipper’s gemstone and instantly filled him in with flashes of everything he needed to know. He saw himself, human and free from the fused oppression he now knew; he saw Bill, cheerfully rattling on about some kind of ‘deal’ that would help free Lapis from her own dire straits; and finally, he saw himself accepting that deal, desperate to finally rescue the blue Gem who had done so much to rescue him, he saw himself shaking the demon’s flaming hand, he saw himself disintegrating into nothing but pure, formless light, he saw Bill somehow compress that light into a deep blue stone, one in the very same shape as his own birthmark. And finally, he saw the demon carelessly drop that stone into Lake Gravity Falls, into the very spot where it would be easy, almost inevitable for Jasper to find him and force him to fuse with her.

And just like that, he finally had it all figured out.

“Y-you!” Dipper gasped, pulling back away from Bill as much as he could with his arms and legs still changed as they were. “You did this! You’re the reason why I-I’m… I’m a Gem, and why I’m here, and trapped with her and-”

“Yeah, yeah, kid, no need to waste any of our time reiterating what we both already know,” Bill remarked, clearly not taking the new Gem’s apt anger seriously.

“Why?” Dipper interjected before the demon could get any of his callous remarks out, largely since he was seething with so much raw fury over how Bill had effectively turned his entire life upside down altogether. “Why would you even do something like this?!”

“Because its hilarious, Pine Tree!” Bill laughed unapologetically. “Or wait, guess I can’t really call you that anymore, seeing as how you’re the new Water Wings and all! See what I mean?” With another snap of the demon’s fingers, Dipper’s gem glistened briefly once again, though this time, a wide pair of rather elegant aquatic wings, almost identical to Lapis’, unfurled from its spot on his forehead, catching him off guard quite a bit, though the somewhat embarrassing sight only elicited even more twisted amusement from the sadistic demon. “Ha! And just when I thought this couldn’t get any more priceless! I don’t know why you look so cross, ‘Water Wings’! After all, I’m sure you’ll catch some great headwinds with those beauties, huh?!”

Dipper only offered the demon a hateful glare before glancing fretfully up at his new wings, ones that he tried to force back into his gem, though despite all of his mental straining, he had no such luck, much to his ever growing frustration with his situation as a whole. “T-this wasn’t our deal, Bill!” he shouted furiously, a part of him realizing he probably looked quite ridiculous with his watery wings coming out of his forehead, though he hardly cared.

“Oh, see, that’s where you’re wrong, kid,” Bill said. “See, I seem to remember you promising to stay outta my way in exchange for freeing your friend. But that means that somebody had to take her place, and since you wanted to save her sooooo badly, I figured you’d be the perfect fit!”

“But you never mentioned anything about turning me into a Gem or about Jasper forcing me to fuse with her!” Dipper countered hotly. “In fact, you hardly mentioned anything at all! I didn’t know anything about what I was getting myself into because you lied about it all! This isn’t fair which is why I’m calling our deal off. Change me back and get me out of here, Bill, now!”

“Aw, sure, I’d be more than happy to do that for ya, ‘Water Wings’,” Bill remarked, though his tone darkened somewhat as he pressed a bit closer to the new Gem. “Giving you back your boring old human meatskin would be a piece of cake! Of course… you do know that means that everything will go back to the way it was before. Which means… Water Wings—or I guess I should call her Pine Tree now—has to come back here to Stripes too, right?”

“W-what…?” Dipper took pause at this, his eyes widening at the alarming implication. “What… what do you mean? Where is Lapis anyway? What did you to do her?!”

“Well, I put her in your place, duh!” the demon quipped, pointing down to his flat form as it depicted an image of Lapis herself, surprisingly completely human, sitting sandwiched in between Steven and Mabel. While there were hints of worry in all three of their expressions, they still smiled to one another, their happiness only growing as the former Gem hugged both of the kids close to her, clearly relieved to be free and with them instead of trapped and alone. The very sight of finally seeing a genuine smile on Lapis’ face after so long stirred something warm up inside of Dipper, and even despite his own horrific circumstances and the fact that he couldn’t be happy there with her, he still couldn’t deny just how glad he was to finally see her released from the nightmarish prison he now found himself trapped within.

“Y-you… you turned her into a… a human…” he mused, his voice almost a whisper as he continued staring at the depiction of Lapis with a ghost of a smile on his face.  

“Ya got that right, kid,” Bill remarked evenly. “I gotta say, the shift from Gem to human was probably a bit of a downgrade for her, but hey, at least she’s finally outta this unending hellhole of pain and misery, huh? Then again, I guess she won’t be for too much longer since you’re so deadest on getting outta here yourself and forcing her back in, right, Water Wings?”

Dipper practically froze as Bill once again extended his hand out to him, blue fire licking at it as he offered him the promise of freedom, safety, and normality yet again. A promise that, by all accounts, as much as he wanted it, he knew he couldn’t take. Not when Lapis had already suffered languishing imprisonment for so long. Not when she had sacrificed almost everything she had just to protect him. Not when she was finally free and happy and living a life she never really got to enjoy before. True, Dipper did miss his own freedom; he missed Mabel and Steven and Stan and the Gems and being a human and even Lapis herself. But as much as he wanted all of that back, as much as he wanted his very life back, he knew that taking it back while taking it all away from Lapis would be nothing more than selfish, especially in light of how much she had given up for him before. And though the thought of being locked away in agonizing solitude with no one but the carelessly cruel Jasper to keep him company was nigh unbearable to him, Dipper knew that he had no choice but to endure it. After all, if Lapis was willing to go that far for him, then it was only fair that he return the favor and do the same for her.

“N-no…” he finally sighed, looking away sadly as he thought of all he was giving up. His family, his friends, his future… all of them would now only be a distant dream he’d never be able to have anymore. And even despite his righteous resolve, that alone was more than enough to bring a tear to his eye. “I… I can’t… As long as she’s safe and happy out there, then… then I’ll stay down here, like this…”

“Forever?” Bill pressed with almost twisted curiosity, clearly reveling in getting his way in the matter.

“F-forever…” Dipper muttered in defeat as that tear finally fell, knowing that, just like that, he had sealed his now hopeless fate, once and for all.

“Well, if you say so, kid!” the demon quickly pulled his hand back, taking Dipper’s seemingly only chance for freedom along with it. “But just so ya know, from here on out, there are no more take-backsies! Which means you’re pretty much stuck in here with Stripes for the long run!”

“Yeah, I… I know…” Dipper acknowledged quietly, looked down at the chains that would now keep him bound and trapped for the rest of his existence, however long that might be.

“Then I guess that’s that!” Bill concluded brightly. “Ya know, it really is a shame, Water Wings, that Pine Tree will never get to know just how much you’re giving up for her here. But oh well, with that new short human lifespan of hers, its not like she’ll have way too much longer to feel guilty about it. Unlike you, kid; you get to spend the next several millennia hanging out down here with Stripes. Who knows? Maybe by the time she decides to let you out, some of the people you love and care about will still be around… Nah, I’m just kidding, they’ll all be long dead and gone by then! Ha! This can’t get any better, can it!? But, I guess if you don’t have any further need for my ‘services’, then I’ll just be taking off here. See ya, Water Wings! Oh, and have fun spending the next few thousand years as a lonely little prisoner inside of a grotesque, hulking monster of a Gem fusion! Like always, I’ll be watching you!”

And, without sparing another word to the hapless new Gem he had so cruelly deceived, Bill disappeared, leaving Dipper alone in the dark depths of Malachite’s mindset once again, a prison that only seemed even more suffocating as he realized he had just condemned himself to being confined to it forever. And as that realization sunk in more and more, his aquatic wings finally dissipated in his growing despair, his eyes welling up with more and more tears that he was powerless to contain as they came out in heartbroken sobs.

Though Bill had told him he’d exist practically forever, Dipper felt as though his life might has well have ended right then and there. Because now, as a result of his own haste and foolishness alone, he’d never again get to experience anything but the empty darkness currently surrounding him, he’d never know anything but Jasper’s senseless burning hatred and cruel punishments and torture. He’d never again get to feel the warmth of the sun or breathe in the fresh morning air or even exist as his own being, his own person outside of the monstrous fusion he now was. He’d never get to hang out with Steven or Connie or Stan or even any of the Gems again, never tell any of them just how much they all meant to him. He’d never get to see Mabel again, to make amends for their final argument or take back the heated words he regretted so much now more than ever. And perhaps worst of all, he’d never get to thank Lapis for her sacrifice, for taking on the immeasurable burden he had now accepted in her stead. He’d never get to keep up his end of the promise he had made to her, that they would be safe and happy and together once again. He’d never get to do any of that, and he only had himself to blame for selling it all away in a moment of pain and desperation, two things that would now only accompany him forevermore.

Because now, he was just as Jasper herself had said; nothing more than a prisoner, a piece of the monstrous Malachite and all that they entailed.

And, from then on out, that’s all he ever would be, for the rest of time itself.

Or at least, that’s what he thought.

It took almost a month for any of them to finally discover where Dipper had been for so long. And when they did, it was in the least expected, and most alarming way possible.

Because when, after another long night of combing the surrounding area near Gravity Falls for any hopes of finding him, Dipper began to suddenly and inexplicably appear in Steven’s dreams, Lapis, Mabel, and the Gems all pressed him to keep going, to look further for the longtime missing boy who had seemingly vanished without a trace. And it was only as Steven found himself dropped into a vast, shadowy teal ocean, one that’s bitter cold water seemed to carry a feeling of mournful agony and hopeless suffering to it, that he finally, finally found Dipper. Though the state in which he found him was anything but relieving.

He floated amidst the seemingly fathomless ocean only a few feet away, his head hung and his eyes closed in an expression of complete and utter beaten exhaustion. Though what concerned Steven the most upon a first glance wasn’t just the fact that his entire coloration was now inexplicable shades of dark, deep blue; rather it was the thick, watery chains locked tightly around his wrists, ankles, and even his neck, all keeping him secured tightly in place, for whatever reason. Something that wasn’t going to continue for too much longer if Steven had anything to do about it.

“D-Dipper!” the young Gem cried, launching himself forward amidst the water he could somehow breathe in. This call was surprisingly enough to rouse Dipper from whatever stupor he was in as he weakly glanced up at Steven, letting out a gasp of shock to see anyone other than Jasper for the first time in what felt like years.

“S-Steven?” he asked, immediately perking up with both surprise and with oncoming fear as he glanced up anxiously. After all, in light of his self-imposed isolation here, he could have never expected Steven of all people to show up, though seeing such a friendly face hardly relieved him now. “W-what are you doing here? No, wait, how did you even get in here in the first place?! D-don’t tell me she-”

“W-wait, hold on, where is here, Dipper?” Steven asked, not hesitating to get the most important details first. “Is this where you’ve been for the past month? If it is, then you have to tell me where we are so we can finally come find you!”

“…I-it… its been a month?” Dipper asked, eyes wide with disbelief upon hearing this disconcerting news, one that almost brought tears to his eyes as he realized just how long he had been a prisoner for. “I-I’ve really been trapped here all that time?”

“Trapped where?!” the young Gem insisted almost desperately, placing his hands on Dipper’s shoulders in an attempt to shake him out of his rattled revere. “Dipper, please, you-”

“S-Steven!” he suddenly interrupted, fear filling his expression even more as he looked back up to his friend. “I don’t know how you got here, but you have to leave, now, before she realizes you’re here! Please, you can’t be-”

“Before who realizes I’m here?” Steven asked, confused. “Dipper, you’re not making any sense. I-I just want to help you, which means you have to tell me what’s going on. A-are you hurt? Who’s trapping you here? Why do you seem so scared?”

Dipper hesitated, flinching away out of genuine anxiety as he stole yet another glance upward, as if he was expecting something to emerge from above. Yet all the same, he forced his very apparent dread aside to finally try and offer some concrete information as he met Steven’s fretful gaze once again. “S-Steven, I’ve been-”

Before he even had a chance to finish, however, Dipper was suddenly lurched upward by the chains binding him, and despite a brief bout of resistance against this force, he was ultimately powerless to keep himself from being pulled up sharply by whatever was above him. “D-Dipper!” Steven cried, acting on instinct as he lunged forward to grab onto his friend’s ankle and keep him weighed down, though that hardly did anything except pull him upwards as well.

“S-Steven, what are you doing?!” Dipper exclaimed in immense panic as the young Gem continued to hold on. “You need to let go! If she sees you, then she’ll-”

“N-no! I’m not letting go!” Steven insisted, tears starting to well up in his eyes that were reserved solely for the friend he had been morosely missing for so long now. “I have to save you!”

“Ugh, you don’t understand!” Dipper shot back, somewhat frustrated with his persistence. “You can’t save me! I’m not-”

Once again, he was cut off as they both finally surfaced above the water, essentially landing on top of each other as they collapsed together upon its somewhat solid, dark surface. As breathless and worn as both of them were, however, neither of them had much of a chance to recover as they were joined by a new figure altogether.

“Alright, what’s with all the noise down there?” Jasper growled to her unfortunate captive as she marched over to him, her expression set in an unsavory scowl as she practically towered over both Dipper and Steven. “I thought I told you to…” The orange Gem suddenly trailed off, her eyes widening with shock as she noticed the young Gem in particular as he slowly began to pick himself up off the ground. “It can’t be… Rose?!”

“J-Jasper!” Steven sucked in a sharp, frightened gasp as he quickly stood, unquestionably afraid of the fierce Gem warrior who had nearly killed him in their first encounter. However, before Jasper could take another step closer to him, her approach was suddenly halted as none other than her own young hostage who had rushed to stand in between her and Steven.

“Leave him alone!” Dipper shouted defiantly, refusing to let Steven endure anything remotely close to the same kind of abuse and torment he had been going through for the past month. Unfortunately though, despite his selfless resolve to protect the young Gem, Jasper was, as always, much stronger and much more in control than he could ever hope to be. A fact that she easily proved as, with just a simple nod of her head, another burst of water shot up from the ground, one that formed something of an aquatic gag meant to silence Dipper as it latched onto him and covered his mouth. At the same time his other chains all tightened oppressively, keeping him essentially locked in place and helpless to do anything but watch in horror as Jasper sulked ever closer to the aptly frightened Steven.

“You stay out of this, Lazuli!” the orange Gem shouted back at him quite threateningly as the young Gem backed away from her apprehensively, especially as she turned to him with a triumphant grin. “And as for you, Rose… I don’t know how you got in here, but am I ever glad you’re here to see this. You thought you could take my Diamond away from me all those years ago? Well, look! I’ve taken one of your ‘Crystal Gems’ away from you!” Her twisted smile deepened as she motioned to Dipper, who was still trying his best to pull against his restraining chains, though of course, it was to no avail at all.

“Y-your… what?” Steven asked, completely confused amidst his ongoing fear. “I-I don’t understand! What are you doing to him?!”

“I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” Jasper sneered haughtily. “I’m getting even with both you and with her,” she nodded back to Dipper once more, who was only able to shake his head in worried warning to Steven, trying to beg him to get away while he still could. Something that, unfortunately, the young Gem didn’t understand as the orange Gem continued. “When Lapis disappeared and this one showed up in her place, I figured it was only fair that I make her suffer every ounce of suffering she put me through because of her! So I figured the best way to do that was to give her a taste of Malachite first hand…”

Steven couldn’t help but gasp in disbelief, his eyes wide with worry as he looked back to Dipper once more, who only looked away from him in shame out of the deal he had made, one that he wasn’t even able to properly explain for himself thanks to Jasper. “Y-you… you fused with him?” the young Gem asked with dawning horror. “But… but how? He’s not even a Gem! You can’t-”

“Ha! You really think I’m gonna fall for that tired old trick again?” Jasper scoffed, stepping over to Dipper and wrenching his chains even tighter as he pulled him towards her. “If she’s not a Gem, then what’s this?” Once again, the orange Gem roughly brushed her captive’s hair aside to reveal the stone fixated to his forehead, a sight that left Steven completely floored from the very moment he saw it.

“D-Dipper…” Steven said, his voice soft and sad as he looked to the new Gem, finally piecing everything about his ongoing mysterious absence together; and the picture he got once he had, was anything but comforting. “Y-you and Lapis… you guys… you’ve been-”

“Enough talking,” Jasper huffed impatiently as she roughly shoved Dipper aside to focus her attention back on Steven. “You know, Rose, I wanted to finish you off in front of what’s left of your pathetic army. But since you’re already here, I might as well make the most of a perfect opportunity. At least you’ll have one member of a captive audience around to see you in your shattering moments…”

It was clear that Jasper was taking quite a bit of sadistic pleasure in the obvious fear as was causing Steven, especially as she towered over him, her heavy helmet summoned and ready to land a brutal blow upon the defenseless young Gem before her. And yet… before she could throw her helmet down, something completely unexpected happened instead.

In an instant almost too quick to notice, a sudden burst of water lashed out at the orange Gem, latching itself around her neck in a thick, bulky chained manacle. Jasper lurched back, startled as more chains began to wrap around her wrists and even her legs until they managed to pull her down to the watery ground altogether. “W-what?!” she gasped, shocked as both her and Steven glanced back to none other than Dipper. His own chains and even the gag were completely gone, replaced by orbs of water that seemed to control Jasper’s chains entirely as they surrounded his tightly clenched hands. But what was by far the most surprising was his expression: fierce, outraged, and absolutely hostile as he struggled to pull the orange Gem back away from Steven and towards himself instead.

“I-I said… leave him alone!” he shouted as he threw his hands down, brutally shoving Jasper back down into the depths that were usually his prison. It was easily the first time he had ever had any semblance of actual control of Malachite’s mindscape, which was why he was left in slight shock as the orange Gem disappeared, leaving him and Steven alone and relatively safe, if only for a moment.

“D-Dipper…” Steven began rather breathlessly as he slowly began to approach the new Gem. “T-that… that was… are… are you really a Gem now?”

The most Dipper could do as the young Gem posed such a question was let out a small sigh, averting his concerned gaze once again as he instead looked to the water now surrounding his hands. “Steven, I-I-” Suddenly, he was cut off as his hands were pulled sharply downward, clearly by Jasper trying to work her way back up to the surface once more. Which of course, meant that there wasn’t much time before Dipper knew he’d be pulled back down in her place, with not a single soul to relay what could very well be the last message he might ever be able to get out. And so, he wasted not a single moment in telling the young Gem everything he could in what little time he had left. “S-Steven, listen to me!” he said, his tone serious and intent even as Jasper continued trying to pull him back under and herself back up. “I made a huge mistake b-but there’s no way to undo that now. Right now, I need you to get out of here a-and tell both Mabel and Lapis that I’m so sorry for all of this! I didn’t know things would turn out this way, but like I said, I can’t change that anymore, so… so I’m just going to have to stay here… l-like this…”

“What? No!” Steven cried, horrified by the very thought of Dipper keeping himself trapped in such an awful state. “Dipper, you don’t have to stay here! We can—no, we will help you! T-the Gems, I’m sure they can figure out a way to split you and Jasper up and then we can-”

“No, Steven!” Dipper insisted somewhat harshly. “I can’t leave. Because if I do, t-then Lapis has to come back here and be trapped with her all over again a-and I can’t do that to her, Steven, I can’t! She’s already been trapped enough!”

“But what about you, Dipper?!” the young Gem pressed almost desperately. “You don’t deserve to be trapped like this either! Lapis wouldn’t want this; I know she doesn’t! She wants you to safe and at home and with her! T-that’s why you have to let us help you. We just want you back already; everyone misses you, Lapis misses you, I miss you! S-so just tell me where you—or I guess where Malachite’s at and we can come and-”

“Just stop already, Steven!” Dipper shouted fiercely, clearly struggling to focus on keeping Jasper anchored down at this point. “Like I said, you don’t get it! I made this mess, which means I have to deal with it, alone! I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of me!”

“But-”

“Just let me do this for you, Lapis!” Dipper suddenly snapped, yanking Jasper’s chains tightly in anger before he realized how he had misspoke. His eyes were wide and pained and filling up with oncoming tears as he looked to Steven once more, reaching the agonizing realization that this was perhaps the last time he’d ever get to see him. A fact that barely seemed to barely matter and matter more than anything at all, all at the same exact time. “I-I mean… I didn’t…”

“Dipper…” Steven said sadly, reaching a shaking hand out to his suffering friend. A hand that he made no attempts to take as he pulled away in both grief and shame.

Dipper still wasn’t exactly sure how his new water wings worked, but even so, he somehow managed to summon them from his gem, awkwardly maneuvering them around himself to block himself off from Steven more than anything else, despite the young Gem’s persistent attempts to reach out to him. “I’m sorry, Steven, but… I’m not Dipper anymore…” he said coldly, his tears lost amidst the water he was trapping himself within as he felt Jasper inch ever closer to the surface, ready to overtake him at seemingly any moment. Even so, he did let out a sigh of both sadness and relief as he saw Steven begin to inexplicably vanish from their mindscape altogether just as Jasper brutally emerged back into it. Surprisingly enough, however, she didn’t immediately shove him back down as she realized exactly what his intent was. An intent that she only smiled cruelly over as she stood behind him, a hand gripped tightly on his shoulder as they proclaimed her vicious triumph, his broken defeat, and their twisted fusion, all at the same exact time in perfect, empty unison:

“We’re Malachite now…”

To be continued…

#universe falls #jen writes #water pines au #uf 3 year anniversary extravaganza #oneshot #angst #dipper #steven #lapis #jasper #bill cipher #gravity falls #steven universe #crossover #au #au week

[laughingpinecone]

Chocobox 2020 letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

It’s a long list of character combos so the specific requests aren’t overly detailed, please draw at will from my general likes and general fandom likes in addition or as an alternative to any of those!

All requests are art or fic - for art, the stuff I like is the kind that depicts the characters doing something. I’ll always be happier with a very simple drawing of two characters walking together or sharing a cup of coffee than with an ambitious composition that looks like an Avengers poster. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s).

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships)

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay), canon retellings, consent issues

Ghost Trick

I am very interested in various characters finding about the erased timeline, but not getting their memories back, and having to live with being told about what they did but never remembering it. Exploring the ghost lore is great. All what-ifs welcome (what if they managed an acceptable happy ending but didn’t reset the timeline, what if a different party went back to the past and kept their memories, what if Alma’s ghost stuck around…) Also open to AUs here, especially for generic fantasy or sci-fi settings or the Final Fantasy ones I prompted last Yuletide .

For the non-canon sides of Jowd/Alma/Cabanela, please no infidelity? I’d be good with either setting the fic during the game timeline or some what-if thereof when the other spouse is dead or unavailable, or simply keeping them offscreen and not mentioning them (eg Alma/Cabanela beach day, Jowd/Cabanela precinct shenanigans)

For Jowd in general, I do love my big boy and enjoy milking that size difference for all it’s worth. In gen contexts too, it’s neat. him big.

Alma/Jowd & Cabanela: Sleepover time! In whose house and why? What’s a Best Friend (tm) thing to do?

Alma & Cabanela: what’s a moment just for them, how are they aligned? How are they both changed by the tale of the other timeline?

Alma/Cabanela: ghost Alma joins up with Cabanela! ...and doesn’t remember the details of her murder or it’s gonna be a very short investigation, but anyway. Bittersweet ghost romance?

Alma/Cabanela/Jowd: please give me a completely smitten Cabs who spent so long pining and can’t believe it’s happening for real (even if it’s been happening for like, two months already?)

Alma/Jowd: how’d Jowd’s strength come in useful that one time?

Alma & Sissel: plot twist, she saves him. Did he misplace his body? Miscalculate some core jump?

Cabanela & Bailey: unexpected dance partners? Cabanela is harsh toward his subordinates but maybe not so much outside work?

Cabanela & Memry: extremely unconventional mentor & pupil let loose on the town like two horrible geese

Cabanela & Missile: what will get these two exhausted?

Cabanela & Jowd: all the devotion, please! Maybe coming from Jowd as well for a change

Cabanela & Pigeon Man: new timeline friendship? PM is a magnificent Cabanela wrangler, I think, reining in the whitecoat excesses...

Cabanela & Sissel: out-noiring each other, Sissel having the time of his life following Cabanela in an investigation

Cabanela/Jowd: hurried confessions outside the prison? Jowd figuring out he reciprocates right then and there or later on? How much later? What’s his favorite thing about Cabanela and vice versa?

Jowd & Emma: I don’t want to undercut her idealism and sound moral principles in doing what she did simply to take a stand against the death penalty, but did they know each other maybe? Or does Jowd reach out afterwards, curious about this woman? ...do they collab?

Jowd & Pigeon Man: I wanna see how they get along... a tiny snippet of a case? What Are Pigeons If Not Small Chickens After All?

Jowd & Yomiel & Sissel: Sissel has two dads. That’s just how it is.

Jowd & Yomiel: Postcanon bonding with total human disaster Yomiel leaning on Jowd like a cat and Jowd being also a human disaster but like more dad-shaped?

Kamila & Pigeon Man: (overriding the “focus on children” DNW) adopted uncle doubles as science mentor!

Kentucky Route Zero

(Should Act V come out between the end of nominations and reveals, I’ll be playing it immediately and I’ll probably add a few thoughts and prompts here for kicks, at the end of this section, after a spoiler warning. Obviously feel free to stick to canon up to Un Pueblo De Nada regardless.)

I’m all for exploration of any of the game’s themes and for including any staples from adjacent genres - wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I generally love AUs so if you want to sidestep the inconvenience of an incomplete canon that way, be my guest! Or of course there’s Xanadu at the height of its glory, an infinite what-ifs generator. Were the requested characters part of it, what were their digital counterparts up to? A Xanadu narrative would be great! I’d also love to hear about any new spot along the Zero or the Echo river, or an expansion of some place that’s only mentioned by Will in HATATE or only gets a few paragraphs of text. Lula getting ideas for a new installation, or an article talking about her work? Donald listening to Static between stations somehow (Donald being constantly high as a kite as per this)? Joseph who went back to the surface finds himself near an entrance to the Zero somewhere? A collection of Weaver-isms? Sad surreal bureaucracy? Feel free to bring in anyone else from any part of canon.

Cate & Will: a small, chill adventure on a new island? Extensive mushroom lore?

Joseph Wheattree/Lula Chamberlain/Donald: the disaster concave love polygon in all its glorious doom... does even Xanadu contain a single hope for them? I’m fascinated by alternative developments in which they all stayed underground and explored further, sprinkled with subterranean symbolism at will

Junebug & Lula Chamberlain: something something art! Something something we live in a society, too. Idk I’m intrigued by their strong personalities and how they might clash, Junebug’s abrasiveness and Lula’s resigned bitterness

Weaver Márquez & Donald: she was down there! They are both very bizarre individuals! How’d that go!

Will & Donald: ...conversely, as far as we know Will was not down there but Will knows everyone. So how’d they get to know each other? What’s the Bureau of Secret Tourism’s take on the Hall of the Mountain King?

Pyre

The burning found family feelings, the revolutionary passion, the tension between topside social constraints and the kind of freedom allowed by the Downside! I love all the themes, the solemnity, the heart of this game. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. My main interest usually lies in post-canon exploration when applicable, but I’m also into various adventures during canon. Pick a location or a place outside the map and see what happens? As for the ending variables, I’d ask for a peaceful revolution and Oralech alive, but no preferences on who’s up or down, pick whatever works best for any given plot bunny.

Big Bertrude & Volfred Sandalwood: “people who were close in the Commonwealth find each other in the Downside” is always a gr8 thing to explore and I’d love it for them! Epistolary friendship if they end up separated?

Big Bertrude/Pamitha Theyn: sneaky, reserved kindred spirits. Their shared ending is great and I’d love to see it expanded. Bertrude’s attitude being thorny in a way that’s just what Pam needs to allow herself to open up... also: snake kisses.

Celeste | The Gate Guardian & Oralech: he let him through when the  and they waited for the Nightwings... did they exchange a few words there? Or do they meet again somehow, in the Union or among the stars?

Celeste | The Gate Guardian & Sandra the Unseeing & Tariq | The Lone Minstrel: the three people who were there when the Scribes walked the earth and who have opposite opinions on the matter. I’d like to see their views clash, either when they were young or during game events

Molten Milithe & The Vagabond Girl: I imagine ae (I called her Tae but no strong feelings on this front) might have different relationships with the different Scribes, so what’s the one with the Wild Witch? What was she going through at a time when she felt her close?

Oralech & Big Bertrude: Bertrude’s protectiveness toward Volfred could be fun to explore here, both in the old Nightwings’ time and postcanon. Volfred aside, they’re a baby revolutionary and a grizzled agitator, which sounds like fun!

Oralech & Pamitha Theyn: idk I just want to throw Oralech at various Nightwings and see if he can make some friends. He and Pam look complicated enough to stand each other.

Oralech/Volfred Sandalwood: I am mainly interested in postcanon reunion, or postcanon established relationship. Getting to know each other again. Oralech figuring out that Volfred’s puffing up in formal meetings because he’s super nervous about all these responsibilities. Seeing what their dream looks like

Oralech/Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq | The Lone Minstrel: Volfred has two hands, and sometimes miracles happen twice? How do they balance each other, what’s the Oralech/Tariq side like and what’s Volfred’s perspective on it? Is Tariq a constant part of their lives or does he fade in and out?

Pamitha Theyn & Ti'zo: flying buddies! He’s a simple soul and she is very much not, but he’s also ancient and has seen heartbreak like hers over and over...

Rukey Greentail & Volfred Sandalwood: on pragmatism. I feel like these two could come to a mutual understanding in their own way.

Oralech & Sir Gilman: is there any way that this won’t end in a demonstration on how to perform a nautical knot with a wyrm?

Tariq & Ti'zo: the great gossiping duo. All the juciest skreeches. There are also a few occasions when Tariq says something about the imps while he blatantly means himself, and I’d like to know what Ti’zo thinks of this projection.

Tariq | The Lone Minstrel & Big Bertrude: he knows how to handle her, and she should know how to appreciate a slightly eldritch creation (?) of the Scribes...

Volfred Sandalwood & Hedwyn: in Oralech’s own words to Hedwyn, Volfred probably picked Hedwyn as an Oralech replacement. Does this change Hedwyn’s opinions on Volfred and the plan? Was it a conscious choice on Volfred’s part? Or how do they get along in general?

Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq | The Lone Minstrel: “both think the other is the bee’s knees and possibly out of their league” is catnip to me. I’d say it’s understandable from Volfred while Tariq is just super smitten (and struggling with his own sense of identity and desires, sure. but also smitten). So I think it’d be fun for Volfred to be somewhat out of his depth for once and try to be close to/console Tariq for whatever reason?

The Last Remnant

I’m very interested in post-game exploration, and getting a clearer feeling of any of the cities and assorted places that populate this fascinating world. I like the whole party with their characterization based on battle quotes, red bubble dialogues, and even their unique stat (‘authority’ is a natural fit for David but ‘romance’ tells me something new about Sibal!) Character interaction. Bit of worldbuilding. What’s another festival they celebrate? Do they erect something else instead of the Valeria Heart? Any fun discoveries down in Siebenbur? Where the hell IS Veyriel, anyway, do they go look for it and if so what do they find out? End of an age. Old bonds.

David Nassau & Torgal & Allan: catfight with mediator. Torgal has two h... Torgal has four hands actually and I’m very interested in his very positive relationship with David and his disastrous one with Allan. It’d be fun if these two aspects of his life came together, like a platonic V

Emmy Honeywell & Pagus: Emmy just ended up short a parental figure and the oldest and chillest of the four generals is right there?

Pagus/Maddox/Sibal: give me all the Qsiti worldbuilding, Siebenbur worldbuilding, Remnant daydreaming, shared backstory, old men reunions after the ending…

Twin Peaks

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, anything that 4 hours Twin Perfect video says is the explanation of Twin Peaks

Albert Rosenfield & Constance Talbot: city mouse and country mouse? What’s their long-distance friendship like and what’s an occasion for them to meet? What’s her position in the symbolic spread of blue rose and blue rose-adjacent disasters/hopes for the future?

Audrey Horne & Diane Evans: Weird postcanon encounters? Can Diane lend a hand when Coop most certainly could not? They are hardened in different ways; we know Audrey has a precious dreaminess underneath that mess, what about Diane?

Chet Desmond & Albert Rosenfield: punchy&pacifist sounds like a recipe for disaster but their directness makes me think that they’d get along great?

Chet Desmond/Sam Stanley: reunion fic! Chet’s been AWOL for years, Sam has fallen through the cracks, how do they find each other again and why do they choose to remain off the grid? I would also like to read about them in the present day-ish, handwaving the return and reunion. Maybe they made a new life for themselves. If Sutherland were to play Sam again, Sam would be… notably more buff. What caused that change, was it traveling with Chet, what kind of person is he now? Could they be in Buenos Aires, investigating on their own whatever that shrinking box was?

Constance Talbot/Diane Evans: when the show was airing we used to joke that the various plots converging on Buckhorn were actually a race to woo the absolute jewel that is Constance. Cynthia got there first but Diane knows how to flirt! We have a whole week and a whole town...

Cynthia Knox/Tamara "Tammy" Preston: the FBI and USAF supernatural branches meet again after Douglas Milford’s times... what’s their attitude toward it (who’s the Mulder and who’s the Scully......), in what ways does their respective task force’s past inform their views, is there more hope for a new generation who saw the trauma of the past without living it firsthand? LET TAMMY KISS ALL THE GIRLS BUT THIS ONE IN PARTICULAR

Dale Cooper/Albert Rosenfield: fiery early days? Dream meetings that Albert will inevitably write off as a product of his aching subconscious? Post-finale where Albert has made his peace with Coop not being part of this world and not even deigning to greet him, except one day Coop is back - with apologies? Post-post-finale where they’re peacefully living out their days as best as they can?

Dale Cooper/Harry Truman: Harry seeing his Coop again… somewhere, somehow. Maybe he perceives him in the woods, maybe Coop isn’t all human now. Monster cuddles very welcome. Could be canon divergence but could very well be post-s3. Harry getting closure for waiting all that time in front of Glastonbury and never giving up on Coop… they can live in the woods together…

Albert Rosenfield/Harry Truman: did they tragically fall into each other’s arms in the wake of Coop’s disappearance? Did they realize they’re so good for each other, but neither of them was willing to give up their life? And/or was the wound of Coop’s disappearance too fresh for them to try to heal? Do they keep in touch throughout the years? Does Albert resign on the spot with a resounding fuck it after the s3 finale and rush to see Harry? Does he stay this time?

Dale Cooper/Albert Rosenfield/Harry Truman: basically the sum of the three sides of this triad… give them peace, given them nice things, give them so much love… Coop finding his place in the world and making up for lost time… give time to these old wounds…

Diane Evans & Albert Rosenfield: any ol’ night drinking together, or ending up in some liminal place much to Albert’s chagrin (and Diane’s as well...?)? I just love their bond and want to see more of it. At any point during their shared history and even after the finale!

Donna Hayward & Audrey Horne: the half sisters meeting again please? And finding a new balance between them, different from what it would’ve been when they were young when they never got a chance to discover it...

Gordon Cole/Phillip Jeffries: does Gordon eventually manage to throw himself into the void (that’s one way of considering a retirement plan!) and reach Phillip? What’s left inside that teapot alembic, or is he the smoke? How did Gordon even get word from Phil - in his pt17 infodump, he seems perfectly aware of the other’s status - what kind of contact have they kept? I love all the fanon I’ve seen for them, if you want to lean into it.

Harry Truman & Chet Desmond: I don’t know how, I just know that it needs to happen to see how they’d bounce off each other. Chet got the short straw with Cable and Deer Meadow in general; Harry just likes them fancy agents...

Lucy Moran & Albert Rosenfield: this. This is the ultimate recipe for disaster. How can it turn out less-than-horrible for everyone involved? Especially with young Albert?

Tamara "Tammy" Preston & Albert Rosenfield: wlw mlm solidarity? He used to be the one pulling all-nighters finding needles in haystacks, now it’s her job; is technology helping? Does she eventually get the full weight of what tulpa Diane and shooting tulpa Diane meant to him? What’s the latest Gordon gossip? What do they do for fun?

Tamara "Tammy" Preston & Dale Cooper: she roasted him for two dossiers in a row and looked characteristically unimpressed in pt17; conversely, the narrative may or may not have positioned her as ‘the new Cooper’. Idk I just want them to meet somehow and feel the passing of the torch...

Tamara "Tammy" Preston & Margaret "The Log Lady" Lanterman: the lady said in TFD she would’ve liked to meet Margaret and I operate on a strict “give Tammy what she wants” policy, details schmetails. There are places in this world and others where the passing of time is at best a vague suggestion, so.

Wally Brando & Harry Truman: Wally visiting his godfather, whom he deeply respects! Frank wasn’t quite on board with Wally’s whole thing but what does Harry think of it?

Wally Brando & Laura Palmer & Dale Cooper: I have a soft spot for Dale and Laura traveling through strange spaces, lost, slowly healing. On this background, imagine, if you will: Wally speeding by on his bike. I need this meeting…

#letter