#transdimensional arc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

esther-dot · 7 months

Note

I'm the 2011/2013 Tumblr anon, and this is kind of embarrassing to admit but I'm also the original Dune anon, if that gives you any idea of my fandom background. (*/ω＼*) I've been in fandom since I was probably eleven or twelve, so fandom is basically home to me lol. I was always more of a sci-fi fan than a fantasy fan growing up, and so it wasn't until GOT I heard of the books; I'd never been a fan of the show, and I was impartial at best to the books. (At school, I knew classmates were reading them--- but for full context, I was a nerd disliked by other nerds for being too weird, so I wanted nothing to do with Tolkien/GRRM lol). I still have a bone to pick with GRRM (and this is partly what limits my participation) and in the case of my regular fandom, I'm very much used to isolation lol. (It's alt-right trolls who have a problem with me... sigh. Imagine a ship like Jonsa which redeems the books' thematic ideas and that's my situation).

I actually was familiar with the Sansa/Sandor ship long before I was interested in either media, because of the shipping circles I run in. Going from that lack of context to the context revealed in the actual books was very weird, because they seem like extremely disparate concepts. If you take Sansa/Sandor scenes and rearrange things, including the numbers in Sansa's age, it does feel like a powerfully violent BatB rendering with a dash of medieval pseudorealism; he's no prince and the romance is impossible, but perhaps he could be her knight or guardian in an unconsummated chaste romance or secret affair etc. It made me really rethink some of the ships I was interested in, and why, and where my tastes diverged from people I usually trusted. I am much less interested in ship archetypes by themselves than how those are enshrined in the narrative/themes at stake. It's also just interesting to me that Jonsa is an arguably truer, redeeming rendering of BatB, or a revisitation of that theme--- which GRRM is interested in, Sansa/Sandor fans are correct about that, but I think it's foreshadowing a future arc for her. Surely all the BatB exploration is being set up for something big?

So how did I find Jonsa.... well, it was a consequence of reading the books lol, though I imagine many people would say the show was illuminating (which is no condemnation that antis think it is). My interest in the books was primarily piqued through the show's ending--- I came to things rather late, but I'm thankful for that, considering that it seems like some of the best fandom discourse has taken place since then. I was mostly interested in it for the purposes of comparison of adaptation, which I find very interesting, and because I find predicting endgames in general very fun albeit painful. I watch a lot of things just to see what my instinctual feeling is because I like practising my narrative divination. I like engaging with storytelling! But I do have a mechanical fascination with it as well. I think this motivated my sending an ask about Dune to both you and transdimensional-void, mostly because the thing that often leads me in the right direction is getting a 'feeling' for the tone of something--- sometimes even beyond pure narrative reasoning. Lol

You'd ordinarily think the show would be offputting to a Jonsa theory (and this is a major spanner in the works, although I do kind of only semi-ironically believe they paired Jon with D/aenerys because E/milia Clarke is shorter than Kit H/arrington, where S/ophie is too tall, which they couldn't have predicted before being informed about a potential Jonsa resolution--- when in doubt, assume stupidity) but Jonsa is also deliciously ironic and tragic even if redeemed through an actual marriage (and we have so many weddings, over and over, that a symbolic redemption of Rhaegar/Lyanna's wound is basically being begged for--- Lyanna is realised in many ways in the story, through both Arya and Sansa... but it makes sense they'd redeem two sides to Lyanna, the wild wolfgirl and the girl married to a dragon. The wound inflicted through Rhaegar's absconding with Lyanna has to be redeemed, whether that is positively or shirking the possibility of a Lyanna/Rhaegar union altogether, so the door is open for tragic Jonsa in my eyes. These types of narrative questions are what I look out for when predicting narrative resolutions and is what led to me to seriously consider Jonsa). I was meditating on this recently because people were asking whether Cat and Ned would approve, and the marriage is only possible because they're dead. A Jon/Sansa arrangement is only possible because they have lost the people they loved most, and perhaps--- like I've seen suggested!--- it might even drive Arya away. As a writer, that, to me, is how you make Ned and Catelyn's deaths in the story echo in a bittersweet way. It's good storytelling. It goes beyond 'and we re-enact the lessons of parents' which is the normal way you'd realise parental remembrance and legacy. And something tells me GRRM isn't interested in predictability. Unless you've read Gothic literature.

So, beyond Jonsa I'm very interested in the reasoning underpinning the show's derivations, and in my case I'm much more interested in Jonsa in the books than the show (that wasn't really what did it), though in the case of the show, I'm interested in where you can potentially see reflections of a book dynamic. But so much of the adaptation is muddied that it's hard to parse, and I'm really not sure how much of GRRM's suggestions they truly had versus what they stuck to. If they knew they needed 'a Jon romance', in the same way as they needed Robb to break his wedding pact with the Freys, but supplemented Talisa, what was motivating their decisionmaking? D/aenerys was the selling star of the show and basically the face of it, and the face of the merchandise and the cultural conversation etc. (which is why they made her death punishing--- the storytelling is so spiteful, and normally I'm a villain apologist through and through, but this case was particularly egregious) and it would seem silly not to give her a romance, because how can you write important female characters without romance? Now, I'm a perennial romance apologist, but the thinking here, to me, seems rather suspicious. So, I think what's special about ASOIAF right now is we've got a theoretical ending through the show, but where does that translate to the books? And where does the fandom get it wrong, and where do they get it right? The historic ubiquity of Sansa/Sandor, and many other fandom trends (e.g. D/aenerys is the rightful ruler, or tragic heroine, and so on) is kind of like honey to me, because all of those theories were completely blown out of the water by the show, but critically--- critically--- there's still room for expansion in the book for other directions. I was put off by simplistic interpretations of the books that floated around and when I read them the fandom characterisation, crossplatform, was actually shocking to me.

Since you asked--- and I'm terribly sorry--- I have a lot of feelings about when TWOW may or may not come out, not just because of anticipation, but because GRRM's authorial struggle is hard to watch through the eyes of fandom. The condemnation of his procrastination, his apparent carelessness--- that he 'took the money and ran'--- the hopelessness--- it's very hard to watch, and what I wonder is how he feels as a writer. Releasing TWOW will lead him into the final endgame, and he'll have to say goodbye to his magnum opus. That is very hard, beyond the show sailing ahead, and beyond anything else. It also gets to me in a personal way (which no one else can help!) because I am a writer trying to finish a long work, and I'm literally at the equivalent point GRRM is, and--- although he's a celebrated published author, and I'm writing for the sole joy of it--- I think that there is probably something fundamentally similar there, which is that holy fuck it's hard. It doesn't matter how much you know what you need to do, doing it is hard, and writing itself is actually an extremely difficult task. And by writing that means formulating ideas, as well as actual finger to DOS machine.

Writing sometimes is kind of like trying to paint a person, except you've never seen a human being before.

But I think that if GRRM is really committed to his bittersweet romanticism, he can pull off a goodbye, lol. And as much as I quibble with his narrative ethos and sometimes he makes me tear my hair out, I want to see him complete his work, because I think every single author deserves that. And because I think that at a minimum, for something like ASOIAF, the legacy of its ending ought to be his final say. I can't speak to his actual psyche but I do fully believe if he can publish TWOW, he can do ADOS. My observation is that TWOW is structurally much more difficult than ADOS, and I think that's one of many reasons he's been dragging his heels, long before the show caught up. Once he gets to the victory lap of ADOS, he will probably have both a professionally and emotionally easier time in terms of having to finish it. TWOW merges the split threads of AFFC and ADWD, whereas ADOS will only have to follow through (touch wood) on the one book, where many perspectives and their storylines will have converged--- at some point, we may have Sansa, Jon, and Brienne all unified! Which resolves character goals as well as being more economic with POV distribution. This is the angle I find very interesting because I think the way he uses character chapters to establish context and meaning beyond pure character is actually genius and rarely done so well in genre fiction, and I'm completely envious of it. (This is also why Jon/Sansa makes so much sense).

This is a terribly long ask so please don't feel the need to respond line by line, lol. I think I got a little excited! Having a positive fandom interaction is so nice. It's really weird that fandom has become such a polarised place (I mean, we had ship wars, but people kept to themselves more), and you're lucky Jonsa is your first fandom--- well, outside of the anti-Jonsas--- because I think it's a lovely place.

This goes for any Jonsa reading it: thank you all for literally keeping me sane. 🥰🥰🥰🥰 If I may ask, Esther, I think you've said that you came to Jonsa through the show then the books--- what drew you to Tumblr fandom? I'm always interested in how people find fandom!

Dune, anon! I'll tag @transdimensional-void because your convo about it did make me finally watch Dune (although I still don't think I'll read the book, sorry!), but the film was gorgeous. I didn't realize the director was Villeneuve. He always has very interesting projects and arresting visuals. Arrival was such a surprising take on an alien movie and it has really stayed with me. I think he has exquisite pacing, too.

Well now I’m even more concerned about the attempted doxing! Horrifying. The internet can be a wonderful thing, but I swear, it brings out the absolute worst in people.

I totally get what you mean about S*nsan seemingly being a BatB thing, but I’ve suggested before that it’s more in line with one of the old monster movies or even King Kong which love to pair something terrifying with a beautiful woman or little girl. It doesn’t mean romance, it’s the juxtaposition of extremes, raw power being stopped by beauty, violence being calmed by gentleness. There’s that line at the end of King Kong, “It was beauty killed the beast.” IMO, the beast and beauty idea is certainly there for the Hound and Sansa, I just don't think it's Disney's Beauty and the Beast. It's a highly romanticized idea, but not a romance in the way we use the term now.

My parents are both huge readers, not really into novels. My dad liked The Hobbit and LOTR tho, and got really into doing dramatic readings of those at bedtime for us kids. I remember The Hobbit the best because he’d make up tunes for all the songs and sing them. They’re very nostalgic for me, that love extends to the LOTR movies, but made it impossible for me to sit through the Hobbit adaptation. Anyway, I read a few sci fi and fantasy books, but I never really got into it. My little sister on the other hand luuuuurrrvs fantasy and she was the one who got me to watch GoT (I’d heard of the books, hadn’t read them) together, but then we ended up living in different states and she decided that it should be our thing to avoid spoilers and only watch the show when we got together. So, we were always running behind from that point on, but we made it through s5 that way. Eventually we just didn’t have the time to do that, and she was so disgusted with s5 she was happy to drop it completely--never watched another episode. I was too invested to stop, so I watched s6-7 myself and was simply appalled by the characterization of Jon. It made me get online for GoT content for the first time. This was in 2018. I saw that Martin gave interviews saying the show’s ending would be his ending, so I a) sped read the books, b) started listening to some of his interviews, c) saw the term “Jonsa” for the first time in the comments of one.

It took nothing to get me onboard because Jon and Sansa were my favorites, I really loved their scenes together, I hated everything after they separated in s7, and I read a lot of 19th century lit as a teenager, so cousin marriage didn't even strike me as weird in the historical context. I can't remember which meta it was I read first, one of Fedon's or blindestspot's prediction of a Jonsa reunion and marriage from 2013, but I got on tumblr and was totally sucked into the fandom.

“I do kind of only semi-ironically believe they paired Jon with D/aenerys because E/milia Clarke is shorter than Kit H/arrington, where S/ophie is too tall” — I’m screaming. D&D @ Kit: "Sorry buddy, if you didn’t want your character to fall in love with a mass murdering tyrant you should have kept growing." lmaooooo.

“Jonsa is also deliciously ironic and tragic even if redeemed through an actual marriage (and we have so many weddings, over and over, that a symbolic redemption of Rhaegar/Lyanna's wound is basically being begged for--- Lyanna is realised in many ways in the story, through both Arya and Sansa... but it makes sense they'd redeem two sides to Lyanna, the wild wolfgirl and the girl married to a dragon. The wound inflicted through Rhaegar's absconding with Lyanna has to be redeemed, whether that is positively or shirking the possibility of a Lyanna/Rhaegar union altogether, so the door is open for tragic Jonsa in my eyes.” --You put this so beautifully. I wish you'd get a side blog and post that in the Jonsa tag, I love it!

One of the major puzzles to me is how the fandom all know just how much the text talks to itself, it's notably self-referential, so the way they dismiss the idea of Rhaegar's son and a Stark girl romance...I have a really hard time believing they don't see the logic there, how it would bring things full circle. The way they treat S*nsan as "practically canon" while calling Jonsa a crack ship when we have that hanging over our heads is a little incomprehensible.

“I was meditating on this recently because people were asking whether Cat and Ned would approve, and the marriage is only possible because they're dead. A Jon/Sansa arrangement is only possible because they have lost the people they loved most, and perhaps--- like I've seen suggested!--- it might even drive Arya away.” --I agree with this too. I am very struck by how NedCat, some of the best people and one of the best relationships Martin offers, has this pain and tragedy written into their love. That's a big reason why I can't quite get on board with an easy resolution to Jonsa, because Martin is just drawn to conflict which is why his characters and story is so compelling, but also makes me think, there will be layers to Jonsa, some real pain there.

“And something tells me GRRM isn't interested in predictability. Unless you've read Gothic literature.” — I once posted a list of gothic lit tropes and he’s included all of them. But Gothic heavily influenced horror, and ASOIAF has horror elements, so that isn't totally surprising when you think about it. It still amuses me though!

It’s definitely a real struggle to see the sense behind D&D’s choices but when I was reading an interview looking for a specific quote, I did see that even in 2011 Martin was saying he knew the endgames, which is a) comforting for Sansa ending up safely in Winterfell purposes, b) reassuring for Dark Dany believers, c) hilarious when you think about how many people are still pissed about Arya and Bran’s fates. And Jon? Well, I’ve made my peace with a tragic ending (although I’ve mocked it a great deal too because I can't see how it works), but we all know they fucked him over the most in s7-8, so I could also see D&D trashing what his ending was meant to be in favor of catering to Targ fans. Apparently Emilia has recently reiterated her frustration that Jon “got away” with killing Dany, so like…imagine the rage if he’d killed Dany and then got a HEA in Winterfell.

My feeling is that Martin told them Jon would kill Dany and they chose to do "the romance" (which imo, they didn't like because the way they wrote and filmed it and permitted Kit to act it just...sabotaged it in every way imaginable) to make it more palatable to her fans who ate it up. They actually are comforted that Jon "loved" Dany and after s8 dropped pics/gifs of him cradling her dead body into our tag bragging that he loved her. Like, D&D made really crappy choices, but I think it was about manhandling their audience while hitting Martin's plot points they knew the Targ fans would hate, not a result of them throwing out the endgames.

“ The condemnation of his procrastination, his apparent carelessness--- that he 'took the money and ran' --I’m not a Martin defender, I have real reservations with some of his choices, but I have family his age and do try to think of him as a person. I find a lot of how people speak of him...well, I have no issue with people being frustrated we don't have TWOW considering how long ago he said he'd finish it (like, back in 2016) and how often since then he's indicated getting close to the end only for it to then sound like he's quite a ways away. As long as people don't harass him, I don't think it's an issue to talk about this in fandom spaces. However, they often sound ignorant of what it takes to write something like ASOIAF, with all the levels he's trying to work on. Also, his writing style sounds like a total nightmare? The idea of tearing things up to fix them seems hopeless to me, and he’s talked about doing this repeatedly—it would be so hard to finish a chapter or several and then realize, nope, gotta rework all of it.

“because I am a writer trying to finish a long work, and I'm literally at the equivalent point GRRM is, and--- although he's a celebrated published author, and I'm writing for the sole joy of it--- I think that there is probably something fundamentally similar there, which is that holy fuck it's hard.” --Oh ho ho! Well, you know that’s gonna make me have all sorts of questions, so if you want to tell me about your work (genre, tome or series, influences, themes etc) I am all ears, but I also know some writers have to keep all that to themselves until they’re done so I won’t pry. Although, because of our exchanges, I would be interested in how you use romance in your own writing.

“writing itself is actually an extremely difficult task” // “Writing sometimes is kind of like trying to paint a person, except you've never seen a human being before.” —dead! I think the issue is, many people don’t distinguish between types of writing? So someone doesn’t distinguish between the goal and what say, a modern romance is attempting to accomplish versus a Jane Austen novel. They might end the evaluation at "like or didn't" and not grasp what all goes into different types of novels, their individual successes or failures, and why some novelists can complete multiple novels in a year, another might spend a few years on one. I think about this a lot when I see people suggest Martin get some ghost writers, and like, this man isn’t churning out genre fiction (which I love, I was a snob as a teen and cured myself, but it is an entirely different kind of writing!), so it's just...a lot of fans totally misjudge the effort required and how easily replicated the work would be.

“I think that at a minimum, for something like ASOIAF, the legacy of its ending ought to be his final say” --I find it incredibly sad every year that goes by and the chance of him completing his series dwindles. People forget that what holds sway over a culture doesn’t always have staying power and a) I think his work is doomed to being forever misinterpreted unless he finishes and b) I don’t think he’ll have accomplished what he wanted to regarding elevating fantasy / getting it the respect he believes it deserves unless he gets to that ending. It's a shame.

I enjoyed reading all your thoughts on Jonsa, the ideas it touches on and how GoT/ASOIAF might differ. Thank you!

#long post #dot chat

29 notes · View notes

bodybeyondstories · 9 days

Text

Just ignore it - 6

After things get heated, David finds himself back at the gas station. Then again. And again.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (Previous)

Male TF // Dick Growth // Growth // Butt Growth // nsfw

This is sort of a non-conclusion to this story arc with a weird idea that I had that I wasn't sure how to execute well (the usual lol). Had a lot of fun with this series, lot of threads yet to play with, eventually, maybe...

---

“That you?”

The Mystery Machine. Lee lazily scrounging around in the bag of cheese puffs. The gas station attendant power walking away, bubble butt jiggling uncontrollably. Me sitting in the passenger seat, staring into space. And not unleashing a higher dimensional being through some magic portal and eating out a giant-size Blake.

I had never had a dream that vivid. He had grown to monstrous proportions, I was awash in his thick musk, his deep, almost subsonic groans shaking me to my core, body lengthening and muscles inflating, his ass like two planets trying to fill up the entire dome–

“We’ll assume yes,” said Lee. “Looks like he didn’t see that coming,” he continued, long fingers reaching into the bag.

“Be careful with those, I heard they go straight to your…” I’ve said this before.

“Ass? Allegedly,” Lee chuckled. “Apparently dudes mix these into their protein shakes on leg day or crush them and down entire family size bags on a dare or whatever and see what happens. It’s an urban legend, but I guess urban legends keep us employed. We’ll have to look into it right after all the other magical calamities spawning off around you.” He gave a cheese dusted smile, leaning lazily over the window, reaching back to adjust the seat of his pants.

Armand plopped himself back into the driver's seat and grabbed the aux cord, began scrolling through podcasts as he started the van. “There’s a great episode I think we should listen to, it’s on…let me find it…”

“Spectral informatics?” I offered, confused as to how I’d come up with that.

“Yeah! I didn’t know you were a fan,” said Armand, excitedly snatching a few cheese puffs from the bag. I squirreled it away before we had to deal with any further snack-based complications.

“Um, sure,” I said, as we pulled off onto the road.

It was actually a pretty interesting episode, and settled into the background of the muted scenery rolling by. Lee was asking lazy but helpful questions in the back, and before I knew it we were engaged in a deep side conversation that complemented the soft radio voices of the podcast hosts. Armand seemed genuinely pleased. This was maybe the longest actual discussion I’d had with him. I was present in a way that the right jolt of caffeine makes the world feel crisp and new.

Because Synt wasn’t there.

I don’t know why it had taken me this long to realize, but Synt’s overbearing metaphysical residence in my mind was nowhere to be found. It was like a weight had been lifted, but I felt the absence of agonistic tension that I had gotten so used to. I involuntarily reached out for that itch of power and possibility, the wild tangle of transdimensional multisensory perception and found only the walls of my own psyche. What happened? I thought, with growing suspicion. Where had they gone?

As county roads turned to back roads and we passed the vine covered “Marshlands State Park” sign, the trees in the landscape seemed to stretch up and yawn in the breeze. I felt small among this ancient, imperceptible community, had the feeling of a convening that I had once been privy to but was no longer. I had a brief impression of a figure strolling through the forest, towering over us as they stretched with them, like an overexposure or an afterimage. Here and then gone.

The episode was wrapping up as the van turned off the small forest road onto a poorly maintained gravel path that led to a patch of dirt currently occupied by a shiny new park ranger truck. Armand pulled up next to it as Lee and I scanned the area for our collaborators, seeing only a path through the trees that led down to an expanse of shallow water. As I stepped out of the van, a shiver went down my spine. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been there before. Not just in this landscape, but this exact point in space and time.

“What’s up?” asked Lee, as he emerged and let his hand briefly scratch my lower back.

“Nothing,” I answered. “Just…deja vu.”

“Happens out here a lot,” came a voice from nowhere.

It felt like I had perceived Blake speaking before registering him as a physical presence making sound. I turned to see him walking up toward us and couldn’t look away. He looked…big. Not just bigger since the last time we met, which for some reason didn’t come as a surprise. The hems of his sleeves fraying at the edges against his biceps, the small tears along the sides of his quads, his shirt fully unbuttoned to reveal a shelf of pectorals that seemed to fill any available space, the sides of his glutes visible from the front. That I had seen coming.

But there was something else that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. He looked at me briefly as if picking up on the force of my attention, moved as if to say something, then quickly turned away, lips pursed in concentration as he continued to unload gear from the truck bed and waddle back down the path.

“He is getting bigger,” came another voice suddenly in our vicinity.

“How are you both so good at that?” asked Lee, turning to see Logan walking up.

“I actually needed to talk to you about–”

“And what’s with the waders?”

“Oh. I, well–”

“Only thing that fits?” offered Armand with uncharacteristic sincerity.

“No, well yeah, well they’re–”

“Airboat,” I said, unaware of how I knew that beyond a crisp image in my head of the five of us gliding across the water. “Blake’s piloting an airboat.”

“I’m piloting a–yeah,” said Blake, emerging from the path. “Water’s still high, so the island is still an island.” He gazed off, staring intently at the cluster of trees in the distance as the rest of us began hauling stuff onto the Swamp Hag.

Under the roar of the propeller, we cruised over golden brown fields of late season wetland grasses, and there it was again. The feeling that this configuration of people, in this airboat, moving through this scene was a repetition with a slight difference. I had the sudden image of a massive eye on the landscape, energy crackling, something coming through. I looked up to see Blake behind and above us in the pilot seat, eyes locked intently ahead towards our destination, left hand nimbly controlling the rudder stick.

I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but his pipe in his shorts seemed to creep slowly down his left leg, leaving dark spots of precum and even pulsing with an occasional lurch further and increase in girth. With his meaty quads looking ready to burst through his pants, he looked like, felt like, a concentration of size and weight. I let my mind wander, imagining what would happen if that prodigious bulge–

One side of his face scrunched in a grimace of concentration, his eyes briefly making contact with mine, a fleeting look of warning–or pleading–before returning to the task at hand.

As we landed on the island, Blake looked stressed, almost flighty, as he lifted the apparatus with the artifact with ease and started following the winding trail towards the center. I followed him along the vein of the iris of this landscape-scale eye as the others got their bearings. He was difficult to keep up with, his tree trunk thighs pumping powerfully as they moved around each other, his form giving the impression of an elephant about to clear a forest path.

“This site feels pretty weird, right?” I said, thinking of his earlier comment about deja vu.

He whipped around in surprise upon hearing my voice. Thrown off balance by the apparatus sitting on one shoulder, he grabbed one of the nearby trees and crushed half the trunk in his hand. He stammered for words as the unsuspecting cypress continued to crack, tipping away from the path and falling into the surrounding woods, leaving a gap of heavy silence.

“I, um, didn’t see you there…” he muttered, his eyes straining under droplets of sweat across his brow.

“Let’s deal with that later,” I said with a helpful smile as I heard the others catching up in the distance.

—

“This is where you found it?” asked Armand, eyes scanning the uncannily circular clearing. “It looks untouched.”

“It’s where it found us,” Blake quipped, his voice level. “And yeah, it just sort of appeared. Right there in the middle.”

That feeling again. I felt with ghostly certainty that I had been there. That I had never left. That I was standing here across an unknowable set of timeframes converging on this temporal point. Beneath that, I felt something deep and subsonic, something I hadn’t picked up on since I was an unsuspecting subject of one of Synt’s energetic outbursts. I could feel an energy seeping into local space, something crescendoing to some sort of threshold, before–

I snapped back to reality. While Armand and Lee had set to work setting up a makeshift cleanroom, Blake had opened the apparatus to remove the artifact and move it to the center of the clearing, complex linework of lavender and gold forming and reforming across its surface. As he let his hands slip away, it remained stationary, rotating slowly in the air.

“Now that’s cool,” I said, walking up to it, entranced. Its motion was flawless, like it wasn’t so much moving of its own accord but the rest of the world was rotating around it. Like if I stopped it with my hand, the celestial motion of the solar system might gracefully fall apart.

Blake, possibly with a similar idea, lifted a finger and brought it to the surface.

“Wait,” I warned, apprehensive but unclear as to exactly why. “Maybe don’t–”

In a fraction of a second, the curls, diagrams, and fractals covering the sphere converged around Blake’s fingertip in a multicolored spiral and sent a jolt of electricity across the short distance.

“Are you okay?” I asked, as Blake winced, bracing his palms against his forehead.

“I…can’t…”

“Remember what we practiced,” said Logan, looking at him with intention.

“What do you mean what you practiced?” I asked.

Before he could answer, a pulse of iridescent energy shot out from the artifact, passing through us and stopping a few feet before the perimeter, forming a dome that resembled a giant soap bubble.

“Oh, hmm,” said Lee, lightly touching the whirls of energy a few feet in front of him as Armand scrambled to adjust their instrumentation. “It’s like a, um–”

“Forcefield,” I said with acute certainty. “It’s a forcefield. I’ve…seen this before. Where have I seen this before?”

“Take a wild guess,” Blake eked through what looked like a head-splitting migraine.

“We’ve been debating whether we should mention…” said Logan.

“Mention what?” I cut in. “And Blake, really, are you okay?”

“It’s Synt,” said Logan. “They took up residence in Blake’s head. I’ve been trying to guide him through it.”

Ah, fuck. Well that explains that.

“Ah, fuck. He’s not trained for this. Blake, you’re not trained for this.”

“I…realize…” muttered Blake, carefully delivering each word, “...that now.” He grimaced, doubling over in pain and intense concentration, actively trying to hold himself together, every vein and sinew along his over muscled body seeming to glow with ethereal light.

“You got this,” coached Logan, moving closer toward him. “Just breathe.” He reached out a hand to steady Blake as he stumbled again.

“No, wait!” I yelled, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

But it was too late. Logan caught Blake’s meaty forearm and was thrown into a full body spasm, every muscle pumping slowly with the power flooding into him. But there was one in particular that was thrown into hyperdrive, the bulge in his waders inflating to even wilder proportions, and showing no sign of slowing down. He managed to let go of Blake’s arm, gasping for breath through beads of sweat.

“You guys alright?” asked Lee. “Looks like it’s gettin’ pretty weird in there.”

“Really incredible readings, though,” added Armand. “You’ve gotta see this.”

“Maybe not the time, dude,” I said, more concerned about Logan’s exhausted whimpers. “You doing okay?”

“It’s not…” Logan looked at me in terror. “It’s not stopping. I–augghhh…” The straps of his waders finally gave up, snapping off his corded shoulders as the mass in his crotch continued to expand. He fell onto his butt, frantically peeling what was left of the fabric off, enjoying a moment of relief as the beast inside was finally freed, before his precum-smothered cockhead landed solidly on his face, covering his entire head and continuing to grow along the ground, before lifting itself, miraculously, into the air. His shaft was thicker than his waist and showed no signs of lessening as his mega dick began to approach at 90 degree angle, swaying gently as it continued to pulse and lurch with mass.

With his legs pushed apart by his beach ball sized nuts, Logan was rendered immobile, powerless to do anything except lose himself in a deluge of orgasmic bliss, his face a contortion of pleasure and panic. As it touched the upper edge of the dome, it stopped, crackling against the force field, allowing Logan to briefly return to lucidity.

“This feels…unbelievable,” he whispered as I approached, hypnotized by the tower of cock before me. I could barely wrap my body around it, pushing myself into the intense heat of his flesh, quickly covered by the constant stream of precum gushing from the tip that was at least 15 feet in the air, pressed against the dome. Whatever I was doing, he seemed to be enjoying it, his breathing quickening as his massive balls contracted and his cock pulsed with additional girth, shoving my arms apart, patterns of fractal static appearing across the force field as his unbelievable trunk pushed angrily against it, cracks appearing and deepening in the framework as it finally pushed through, shattering the bubble into a multitude of iridescent shards.

And then–

—

“That you?” asked Lee.

The Mystery Machine. Lee lazily scrounging around in the bag of cheese puffs. The gas station attendant power walking away, bubble butt jiggling uncontrollably. Me sitting in the passenger seat, staring into space. And not using my entire body to jerk off the monolith of cock attached to Logan.

Ah, I thought, my face scrunching in annoyance. A time loop.

“We’ll assume yes,” he continued. “Looks–”

“Like he didn’t see that coming,” I finished. I looked at him standing in the car window, pausing in surprise with cheese puffs halfway to his mouth. “It’s a time loop.”

His eyes widened in thought for a weighty few seconds, twitching back and forth as if doing quick calculations in the air between us, brows furrowed in concentration.

“Well that’s fun,” Lee said, returning to nonchalant snacking. “How many iterations?”

“I think this is the third.”

“Oh that’s fine. Time loop protocol doesn't start until at least the fifth or sixth.”

“Well I don’t feel like waiting that long.”

“Waiting for what?” asked Armand, hopping back into the driver's seat. “By the way, is there a new style I’m not aware of or was that you’re handiwork with the station attendant? It’s less than professional is all I’m saying.”

“Dave’s stuck in a time loop,” said Lee.

“Of course,” groaned Armand, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Time loops are so much paperwork. How many iterations?”

“This is probably the third,” I offered. “At least the third.”

“Last update on time loop protocol says to wait until the sixth.”

“See that’s what I said,” Lee interjected, easing into the back seat, leaning his lanky self conspiratorially forward.

“And I don’t think we have time for that,” I retorted.

“Well technically we do,” said Armand, a helpful, oblivious smile as he started the car.

We cruised through the rolling landscape, discussing the same podcast (at this point, I was really coming around to spectral informatics). We pulled into the Marshlands. We greeted the pair of Blake and Logan who had a consistent, but slightly different dynamic of weird and antsy.

Protocol called for as few people as possible being informed of a potential time loop, even if both of them, Armand stressed, had been possessed–and were possibly currently possessed–by a cross-temporal trickster deity.

We take the airboat. We get to the island. We fall, somehow unsuspecting, into some wacky bullshit. And then–

—

“That you?”

I sighed into the mist of ass enhancing cheese dust kicked up by Lee’s questing fingers. “Fourth iteration.”

“Oh a time loop! The plot thickens.”

“Yes. And yes, that was my handiwork. And yes, the cheese puffs are causing more than the plot to thiccen.”

Lee paused in brief trepidation, then shrugged and grabbed one last handful before easing into the backseat. “What’s this one like? I don’t think time loop protocol starts until at least the fifth or sixth.”

“The sixth, according to Armand’s last memo.”

“You read Armand’s memos?” asked Lee, incredulous.

“No, he just–”

“You read my memos?” asked Armand, hopping into the driver's seat and taking a minute to nonchalantly wrestle with his bulge into a slightly more comfortable sitting position.

“No, you mentioned it earlier. Earlier for me, meaning you haven’t actually mentioned it yet.”

“Dave’s in a time loop,” Lee offered. “Fourth iteration!”

Armand paused, his eyes shifting around the middle distance just passed the hood of the van, looking like he was very carefully piecing his next words together. “You know I really shouldn’t eat these,” he muttered, reaching into the bag of cheese puffs.

The podcast. The Marshlands. The airboat. The clearing. The great watery eye in the landscape on the verge of winking at me in jest. The artifact, hovering.

“What could possibly happen this time?” I asked myself. “Maybe aliens touch down and retrieve their toy.”

“No, I don’t think that would happen again,” came a voice from just out of sight, but not out of earshot.

I turned my head slowly, making eye contact with the oh shit look painted across Logan’s face.

“What do you mean again?” I asked, eyes narrowing.

“Well, we were trying to tell you, or, debating whether to tell you yet,” he stammered, before catching himself. “Wait, what do you mean this time?”

We stared at each other, waiting to see who would break first.

“Tenth iteration,” he said.

“Fourth iter–tenth iteration?! You never thought to mention this?”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to tell anyone until like iteration twelve,” said Blake.

“Iteration twelve…” Armand seemed to deflate.

“No, no, they changed it,” said Lee.

“Does no one read my emails?” asked Armand, a vision of exasperation.

“Oh buddy,” said Lee, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Of course not.”

“You’ve been through this nine times?” I asked. “And every time, what, something weird and catastrophic happens?”

“And then we reset,” Logan confirmed.

“I’ve been thinking,” Armand mused, “maybe this whole ritual with the artifact is a strategy for Synt to fully enter this plane of existence, but maybe it fails every time, essentially short circuiting this local timestream and resetting it.”

“So Synt keeps breaking the rules and the game restarts?” said Lee.

“There are…rules?” asked Blake, heading tilted slightly in wonder.

“There are laws,” said Armand, “for this corner of multidimensional existence. There must also be for higher planes and more complex configurations. At least guidelines. Maybe some sort of natural adaptive system, or even a higher dimensional defense mechanism.”

“A higher dimensional defense mechanism,” I began, “that reins in the higher dimensional being that we can already barely fathom?”

“I mean…possibly?”

We sat in the soft moss for a while, contemplating our shared existence as specks of cosmic static. We bounced around half baked ideas and speculations about quantum field theory, supernatural entanglement, simulated realities, clockwork universes. We waited for some ridiculous happening to send us back to start over again. We debated why it was or wasn’t.

“One time Dave turned into a giant and started throwing trees around,” Blake said, perking up with enthusiasm.

“Oh hell yeah,” said Lee. “Can’t believe we missed that one.”

“I think you died in that one, actually,” said Logan, with a quick, sympathetic smile.

“Oh dude, c’mon,” said Lee, turning towards me.

“I’ll buy you a beer when we get this figured out,” I said, throwing my hands up. “A whole round!”

The Sun moved to the tips of the trees along the western edge of the clearing. The sphere spun smoothly on its axis.

—

[Meanwhile, at the gas station…]

Okay, sharp inhale, hold it, hold it…cinch your entire body inwards, and pull. I yanked up the waistband of my khakis, giving it a few jumps to get gravity on my side, and gasped in delight as my backup pants miraculously made it over my glutes. Not all the way, I turned to see them riding low in the back, but good enough to make it through the rest of my shift. They were my last pair, the others laying in tatters, strewn around in frustration.

I still couldn’t believe that three of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen rolled into this little gas station in the middle of nowhere and I actually ripped my pants. And then the backup pair. And then the backup pair to the backup pair. They had fit just that morning. Not well, but well enough, considering the shelf I was dragging behind me. I didn’t think it had gotten that much bigger since the last time I had had everything adjusted. I had always been proud of my bubble butt, but it seemed like any weight I put on went to one place and one place only, and it was getting ridiculous. And expensive. I had just been joking when I mentioned the cheese puffs, but maybe I should cut back. At least I had this final pair, practically painted on to my backside, but stable so long as I made no sudden–

“Hey Kes!” I wheeled around to see what Zac wanted, grimacing as I realized far too late what I had done. The sound of seams ripping, the touch of cool air across my butt cheeks, the look of unbridled glee on Zac’s face.

“...Fuck,” I said, hanging my head in resignation. “What is it?”

“I was going to ask if you did inventory yet, but I see you got some bigger fish to fry.” The easy smile, the lean against the side of the doorframe. The bulge in his pants that I knew from personal experience was a 7” softie–and that I knew from personal experience was a serious grower. “Is that, like, a harness?”

Ugh. “It’s a, ah, support system,” I corrected, glancing back at the array of straps and elastic bands holding my round cheeks in place, now fully visible to Zac from the doorway. “I found it online, they’re made special for guys with unique, uh, proportions. Didn’t think I would need it, yet, but I had one on hand just in case.”

“Hmm,” his eyes settled closed as he nodded, putting on his active listening face. “So like a bra.”

“It’s not a…” I sighed, giving up mid sentence.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” his palms out in acquiescence. “You know I’m a big fan of your unique proportions.”

That was putting it lightly. Zac’s one of my oldest friends, a very endearing stoner type who always manages to stay cool as a summer breeze. He’s had a habit of bouncing from one scheme to another, the latest of which is this run down gas station he acquired a few years ago and has somehow managed to keep operational. He lets me pick up part time work in the offseason, and most days it’s just the two of us looking after things and managing the slow drip of business, allowing ample time for the benefits of our friendship. He had always been a big fan of my assets, and my now constant wardrobe struggles only worsened his enthusiasm.

“You know it’s hard for me to find pants that fit, let alone get alterations out here,” I said. “I almost asked one of the guys in that van just now before I had to run back in, you should’ve seen…” I trailed off, holding an invisible beach ball between my hands.

“You’re more than enough for me,” Zac said with a smirk. “I think there are still those stretchy purple shorts in the office, from back when we did the Incredible Hulk promotion.”

“Don’t remind me.” My cheeks blushed as I thought back to the comical sight of my ass stuffed into that spandex costume, going viral on social media.

“How ‘bout you stay behind the counter and I’ll handle the pumps. You only have to be presentable from the waist up,” he added with a wink.

“Deal,” I said, my eyes lingering for a few seconds as he meandered off.

The stretchy purple shorts–with tattered fringes and cosmetic tears, of course–weren’t exactly my style, but they were at least comfortable. And chances of catastrophic failure were minimal with me perched on the stool behind the counter, ringing up the occasional customer and flirtatiously shooting the shit with Zac as the hours ticked by.

It was a normal enough day, but I couldn’t get my mind off that trio who came through earlier. I could feel, I don’t know, an energy about them, like the air around them was shimmering but not in a way you could see, if that makes sense. I guess it doesn’t. I would’ve written it off as the usual weirdness out in the boonies, but it lingered all day. Felt deeper and deeper. Like a presence had stayed behind after they left, some sort of gravitational pull hovering in the back of my mind, making my skin tingle and my hips flex with the feeling of phantom touches. Like a cosmic pressure growing. The opaque, dream-like impression of a trickster smile.

Not that I much cared. I grew up around these parts, there’s all manner of haints and spirits and cryptids, or whatever you want to call ‘em. You learn to deal. Pay attention to the hot/cold patchiness in the woods, watch out for fairy circles in suspiciously quiet clearings, don’t stare too long at the crotches of trees that look too much like doorways. Not that I had a habit of putting my nose where it didn’t belong, but I paid attention to the stories and had done plenty of reading of my own. I knew enough to know that sometimes a being that may or may not be of this world decides to spend some time with you, and sometimes that being may or may not want to have some fun with the fabric of our mundane everyday reality. Didn’t mean you had to take ‘em all that serious.

Pretty sure the park rangers out in the Marshlands get paid to deal with that kind of stuff. Seems like a fun job. Apparently you just have to take some classes at the university. I’d been considering it off and on but maybe this is some kind of sign. In the meantime I thought maybe I was craving some quality time with Zac that evening. I couldn’t quite explain it, but I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe his seven inch softie was looking more like eight.

I had the impression of tectonic plates in the back of my mind moving in agreement.

#male tf #girl help! I'm stuck in a time loop

10 notes · View notes

ragsy · 9 months

Text

God I love bands with weird and extensive lore. Where else can I watch a cowboy, a resurrected corpse, a human/gremlin hybrid, a transdimensional muppet, a severely sunburned white man, and some guy hidden behind a pillar absolutely slay a cover of 'steal my sunshine' and afterwards think to myself "that was a very satisfying emotional arc"

#ragsycon exclusive #it's nick lutsko and the $100k band btw

32 notes · View notes

stoplookingup · 1 month

Text

I just finished rewatching Star Trek Enterprise S3, aka the Xindi arc, and realized something I'd missed before. Don't know if it's been discussed elsewhere, but anyway....

The S3 story of a horrific attack on Earth by distant aliens who see humans as their worst enemy, and the Enterprise going after them to prevent Earth's annihilation, was explicitly inspired by 9/11. The showrunners said as much. Like most Enterprise fans, I've always appreciated the gradual development of the arc from a story about angry, grieving humans thirsty for revenge to one of diplomacy, mutual understanding, and cooperation.

But...cooperation against whom? Turns out there's a shadowy cabal behind the whole ugly mess. Literally shadowy. They're beings from a transdimensional realm who are transforming the fabric of space to be hospitable to their kind and uninhabitable by anyone else. They know that in the future, Earth will play a key part in defeating them, so they operate secretly and deceitfully to change the time line, manipulate the Xindi into destroying Earth, and prevent that future from coming to pass.

So...conspirators, puppet masters pulling the strings, a hidden enemy who's been there all along, controlling everything, with only their own interests at heart, causing suffering, death and destruction for their own benefit. In a story about 9/11. That's...troubling.

Almost immediately after 9/11, conspiracy theories began to circulate about who was "behind" the attack. A common one:

"The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory in which adherents believe that a cabal of powerful elites is secretly implementing a dystopian international governing structure that will grant them complete control over the global populace....Many modern-day conspiracy theories – including the NWO theory – have anti-Semitic origins....Within these narratives, Jewish people are frequently framed as the orchestrators of global events and accused of creating a supranational governing structure for nefarious purposes. These dangerous narratives are still widely promoted today....The NWO’s application within American discourse can be seen through the reaction to major events, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As millions mourned, questions naturally arose as to culpable parties and their potential motives....Conspiracy theorists took advantage of the emotional turmoil to further sow their conspiratorial beliefs. NWO adherents were no exception and stood as major players in this conspiratorial competition."

-- Middlebury Institute of International Studies

No, I am not saying Star Trek writers were intentionally promoting antisemitism on Enterprise, any more than they were when they created the greedy Ferengi or the Illyrians-as-conversos. Star Trek is chock-a-block with cringy, unintentionally racist alien stereotypes, doubtless due mostly to lazy, thoughtless writing. What I am saying is that a lot of stuff floating around in the zeitgeist -- stereotypes, myths, conspiracy theories, etc -- makes its way into popular culture and implants an attitude that predisposes people to at least find it plausible that this is how things work, this is a thing that happens, this has some basis in reality. As story-telling creatures, humans are really good at finding the hidden messages and lessons. These story elements prime the pump. When people then encounter conspiracy theories steeped in bias, at least some will be disposed to think, "Yeah, sounds reasonable, an international conspiracy of Jews (or whoever) explains a lot," or at least, they'll buy into the vague notion that Jews (and Others) are disloyal, untrustworthy, etc.

So, hey, Star Trek writers, and all writers: Do better. Please.

NB: I still think Enterprise is kick-ass Star Trek. What would my life be without problematic faves?

#star trek #enterprise #antisemitism #sphere builders #xindi #unintentional racism

7 notes · View notes

cultho · 5 months

Text

rant about lotk that i suddenly remembered

totally valid if you enjoy the series or the points im abt to mention, these just b my opinions

worldbuilding / aesthetics i distinctly as a just started middle schooler being disappointed by the designs 'modernized' world i'd so come to love. ie, the western/european industrial revolution influences. sure, historically, due to colonization imperialism etc from western powers that's how a lot of it happened (to my understanding); but for me there was no 'europe' equivalent in the atla world,,,, so like where would those visual influences b coming from??? tbh it's less even 'oh it doesnt make sense in-world' but more just wanting to imagine what modernized asian aesthetics would look like sans western influence. i'd also hate to equate 'modernization' with 'westernization'. Perhaps sth like an AsianFuturism. for me it felt like a shame that the creators couldn't imagine more tech advanced asian cultures without the influence of the western world. This was also the desire of a younger me, pre-Asian American media boom (think starting somewhere around crazy rich asians, EEAAO, Michelle Yeoh, etc), back when i almost literally never seen ppl who looked like me portrayed meaningfully not even gonna lie i thought the giant statue of aang was cringe LMAO,,, i was like bro this isn't manhattan like hello????? like to me if aang were to be memorialized in world that's not how it would look.

2. explaining too much/avatar wan's arc again, completely valid if you enjoyed this part. i just personally didn't care for it.

i felt like it was explaining sth that didn't need to be explained, and then explained in an overly literal way that didn't add to the overall work. for me spirits/spiritualism/the avatar were a deeply ingrained given part of the world. the avatar especially was just a built-in self-regulation mechanism (essentially a guaranteed diplomat who has had to live/experience cultures of the 4 dominant nations)

then the way the first avatar was explained felt overly literal; the world of spirits/spiritualism became just a gigantamax pokemon fight - oh, who's the bigger spirit??? will they have the muscles to beat the other meanie spirit????? rather than spirits being portrayed as sth just beyond mortal understanding, ineffable & transdimensional, fickle beings in their own right. Even the spirits who appear frightening or uncomfortable weren't portrayed as necessarily 'bad,' they were just spirits, and with that came with their own moral codes that human perceptions didn't strictly apply to. and like also the raava/vaatu dichotomy was stupid. it reverts to (tired) white = good and black = bad tropes. and also yin/yang DOES NOT mean good/bad LIKE PLEASE. in general i feel like a lot of the tlok plot points came from a (unecessary imo) need to explain everything, make sure everything was black&white (ha), either good or bad, rather than the complex morality a lot of OG atla writing portrayed and further implied. Reminds me of famous concept artist Lorraine O'Grady's essay 'Olympia's Maid' (ctrl F "both: and" to jump to the sections im referencing), critiquing Western 'either:or'ism that struggles to accept the multiplicity of "both:and"ism having watched atla, my questions weren't 'oh how did the avatar come to be?' i was more curious to see different corners of the world, different expressions of the cultures of the four nations (we've seen the swamp benders, the sun warriors, what else was out there? SHOUTOUT THIS RAD ART). i also rlly vibed with a lot of fan writings, such as what may have happened to any underground air nomad diaspora. i wish they focused on using bending/atla world mechanics as vehicles to allegorize concepts & human experiences rather than wasting spending all their time explaining those mechanics to death.

and yes im aware the show is made by western creators for western audiences (and the four element system is western, by contrast for example chinese theology (?) concerns 5 elements - wood, metal, earth, water, fire) and yes OG atla definitely had a lot of flaws, but for me these were the points where i stopped enjoying tlok ykwim

#atla #a:tla #essay #personal essay #tlok #tlok korra #avatar: the last airbender #the legend of korra #and yes im tagging it under the show titles!!!!

7 notes · View notes

alcorian-wizard · 9 months

Text

Follow up to this post!

Someone in the tags said that they're gaslighting the entire town and im screaming it's literally the funniest thing

#tau #transcendence au #alcor #alcor the dreambender #gravity falls #gravity falls au #dipper pines #dipper #art #tau art #transdim arc #transdimensional arc #mabel pines #grunkle stan #grunkle stan: you cant just clone urself and think this is a good financial decision #://#mystery triplets au

510 notes · View notes

that-ghosts-art · 1 year

Text

The Other Way Chapter 14: The Portal

Chapter 1 - Last Chapter - AO3 Link

To those who are reading my fanfic I hope the wait was worth it ;3

~~~

The fading light filtered down through the thick layer of leaves. How long had they been out here, Dipper wondered, searching the forest for the way home.

It had been at least a few hours since Alcor had brought them to the forest surrounding Gravity Falls in search of the portal, and now here they sat infuriatingly close. Unfortunately there were also a bunch of heavily armed, multiverse hating cultists in the way that wanted to destroy his and Mabel’s home dimension, and probably them as well if what Alcor said was anything to go by.

If there was one thing Dipper was taking away from his little interdimensional ‘adventure,’ it was that there were cultists quite literally everywhere here.

The three humans were waiting in a small clearing while Alcor went ahead to get a feel for the situation, with Wren keeping an eye on the twins.

Dipper glared up at the dusken light from his spot sprawled out on the grass, letting out an annoyed huff. “If I never have to deal with another cult, it’ll be too soon,” he grumbled quietly, mindful of the headache that had stubbornly remained after his last attack. It was like the dull thumping of a heart, beating in time with the unknown force that resented his dual presence in this dimension. An ever present reminder of the time limit hanging over their heads.

Looking up from cleaning her strange looking gun Wren raised an eyebrow at the sulking pre-teen. “Another? How many cults have you two met?”

“This’ll be my second and bro-bro’s third since getting here,” Mabel said, before looking thoughtfully at nothing in particular, nothing that Dipper could see at least. “Though I guess all up it’d be third and fourth if we include that memory erasing one from back home,” she added, shrugging and looking up at the demon hunter with that characteristic Mabel smile, if a bit smaller than it usually was back home.

“Damn, that’s a lot of cults for four days.”

“Three actually, and that’s including today,” Dipper corrected, slowly sitting up.

“Crazy to think it’s only been three days, with everything that’s happened it feels like it’s been ages since we got here,” Mabel mused, and Dipper silently agreed.

Since first falling in that hidden portal and appearing in that alley they had been captured, saved by Alcor, played an, in hindsight, rather ridiculous amount of DDnMD, temporarily believed Alcor murdered a family and stole their home only to then discover that actually he was an alternate Dipper, leading to him, the original human Dipper to run off and get captured again, saved by Alcor again, learnt about Alcor’s past, and finally ended up in the Gravity Falls woods where they met Wren and located the portal home. Just one more obstacle to get past and this would all be over.

There was a small feeling that could only be described as a ‘blip’ and the trio looked up to see that Alcor had returned, face scrunched up in thought and feet decidedly off the ground.

Putting her weapon down Wren got up and approached the demon. “What’s the status Alcor? Will I be needing to help out?”

“Probably,” he admitted, absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck. “There's only nine cultists total, three guarding the perimeter, two by the portal itself and three more going over what looked like data they had collected.”

“But?” Mabel prompted from her spot on one of the larger rocks in the area, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

Alcor sighed, running a hand through his hair. “While normally I’d be able to handle these guys easily on my own, I need to focus and put my energy into making sure that the portal’s safe and will actually take you two where you need to go.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Dipper grumbled, scratching the back of his left hand as he layed back down. He’d found that lying down made the throbbing in his head easier to deal with.

“How do you know about these weirdos anyway?” Mabel asked.

“An older faction of them summoned me a couple hundred years ago in the hopes I would open a portal for them,” he answered, beginning to pace back and forth in a manner Dipper recognised as being not too dissimilar to his own habit. “Honestly I’m surprised they even still exist,” Alcor added, almost as an afterthought.

“So, did you?” Wren asked, eyebrow raised and arms crossed. “Open a portal for them?”

Alcor stopped mid - step? Dipper wasn’t sure if it counted as such given his feet remained hovering above the ground - and gave Wren a deadpan look. “If I couldn’t open a portal now for two kids I actually want to help what makes you think I could, or even would, for a bunch of nut jobs that think they’re capable of destroying other universes?”

She shrugged, quietly mumbling “fair point,” before returning to cleaning her gun.

“Hey, wait,” Dipper said, sitting up again, ignoring the dull protest from his head at the sudden movement. “If they already have access to the portal, you don’t think they already-“ Breathing suddenly became very difficult, panic filling his lungs with each attempt. Surely these people would not have the ability to do any damage to his and Mabel’s home, but paranoid ‘what if’s’ consumed Dipper’s thoughts like a virus.

Alcor was already shaking his head though, feet landing on the ground. “Oh no no no! I highly doubt they have the means to destroy an entire universe,” he interrupted, kneeling down and making abortive hand motions. “Maybe give a couple solar systems some strife but no actual danger. From what I saw it looked like they were probably still testing the portal out, seeing what they can do with it,” he added with what Dipper assumed Alcor thought was a comforting smile, but it was difficult to tell with his shark-like teeth.

“You think so?” Dipper asked, uncertain but wanting desperately to believe it.

“Of course!” Alcor said, standing up again.

“I mean, you say that but we don’t actually know how long they’ve had access to that thing,” Wren interjected, mostly focused on the last part of her gun that had yet to be cleaned.

Alcor glared at her, crossing his arms. “Hey! I’m trying to be reassuring here! And besides, last I checked they were all still mortals without universe destroying powers.”

“Yeah!” Mabel said with a chuckle. “They probably don’t even know how to go through the portal,” she snickered.

“Oh definitely not.”

The two started laughing, much to Dipper’s frustration.

“Okay that’s great and all,” he said, “but do you think we could maybe get back to figuring out what our plan is? It’s not like we can just wander out there with all those cultists around.”

“Right, yes, plan. You guys have any ideas?” Alcor asked, sobering up, hand moving up to rub his chin.

“Maybe I can go ahead,” Wren offered. “Distract them while you three get to the portal and do whatever it is you need to do,” she said, waving in Alcor’s direction.

“No, as good a fighter as you are, I don’t think you can take on nine destruction happy cultists all at once.”

“Try me!”

As the two bickered about the general usefulness of a single stun gun against nine cultists, all with significantly more deadly weaponry, Dipper realised focusing on what they were saying had suddenly become more difficult than it should have been. He ignored the feeling of pins and needles that had appeared in his left hand as he tried to focus through the headache on what Alcor was saying.

“I guess I could go ahead and deal with them all beforehand but-“

Alcor paused, probably in thought, but for half a second it looked as if he might have flinched. Dipper knew Alcor had said that his presence there would not have an affect on him, but perhaps-

Mabel’s gasp interrupted Dipper’s train of thought - it was probably nothing anyway -, and when he looked over to see what was wrong was met with her terrified face staring down at him.

“Dipper your hand!” she cried out and they all looked at it, only to find the tips of his fingers steadily fading away. Dully Dipper heard the frantic and panicked exclamations of the others, but all he could focus on was the pounding in his head as he stared in terrified silence at his vanishing hand.

With that realisation his headache decided now would be a good time to remind him why they could not take things slowly as the dull throbbing abruptly became a sharp pain that spread through his head and down his arm to the hand that was now barely there.

A quiet “oh,” was the only reaction Dipper could manage before he felt his vision fade.

Soon the only thing he was cognisant of was a ripping sensation, like the individual atoms in his arm were fighting to leave his body. His head felt as if it was being split in two, or perhaps merged into one? Afterall there were already two of him there. As it was, whatever thoughts he might have had were drowned out by the burning, the pulling, and the crushing feelings overcoming his every sensation.

When the feelings resided to a more bearable level Dipper saw Mabel, Alcor, and Wren hovering over him, fear, concern and panic clear on all their faces.

“That, was definitely worse than the last one,” Dipper croaked.

“Screw this, we need to go, now,” Alcor said, eyes dark and shoulders tense. “Wren we’ll go with your plan you go ahead to distract the cultists I’ll get these two to the portal and make sure they can pass through it safely. Let’s get moving people!”

As Mabel helped him up Dipper was dimly aware of Wren running ahead and Alcor gently ushering them forward. All Dipper could focus on though, was his left hand, and the pain emanating from it. Well, where his left hand had been.

What had vanished leading up to the attack had not returned with its passing. It had only gotten worse.

~~~

Mabel, Dipper, and Alcor moved as silently and as carefully as they could towards the clearing that gradually came into view. Wren had already run ahead to distract the cultists, and Mabel could just see her in between the trees.

“It’ll come back, right?” Mabel heard her brother whisper, still staring at the slowly fading stump where his left hand had been not that long ago. It looked, Mabel thought, like someone was trying to erase him, and she could already see other small spots and pockets where Dipper was starting to fade away, tiny dust-like specks falling away from him. She felt the hole in her stomach fall deeper with each smudged spot she saw.

Alcor’s crouched form stopped as he looked over his shoulder at the two of them, his eyes screaming worry and fear, and not a small amount of tiredness. As Mabel looked at Alcor, her alternate brother, she wondered how true his claim was that he would be fine. Had he always looked that exhausted? Not to mention that odd little moment he had immediately before Dipper’s last attack.

“Of course!” he whispered with a soft smile. “I’m like, ninety nine percent certain it’ll all be okay.”

“But, not a hundred?”

Alcor’s smile became softer still, as he cautiously placed a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “I’m sure that once you’re both back in your own dimension everything with right itself and it’ll be fine, there’s no reason for things to not fix themself as soon as you’re home,” he said, looking at Mabel as well. She appreciated the effort to comfort them both, and gave him a small smile of her own.

“Now,” he continued, “please stay quiet, we’re almost there, and we need to be ready to run as soon as Wren start’s distracting these guys.”

Mabel nodded her head, a look of steely determination falling on her face, and she could see out the corner of her eye Dipper doing the same.

The trio stopped just shy of entering the clearing itself, staying just out of sight. Mabel could see five cultists from their hiding spot, but knew the other four must have been somewhere nearby. They hardly mattered though, because across the clearing, barely any distance at all, all things considered, the shimmering light from the portal was winking at her.

They were so close, after all this time finally seeing their ticket home was a welcome sight.

The large guns were significantly less welcoming.

They waited in nervous silence for Wren to make her move. Fortunately they did not have to sit there long, as less than a minute later she burst through the trees on the opposite side of the clearing, screaming and firing her weapon at the cultists, bursts of sparkling blue light knocking down three of them before the rest could react. The last of the nine cultists appeared as they all started firing at Wren, the tallest of the group barking orders at the others to get her.

In that moment of confusion Alcor started making his way to the portal, Dipper and Mabel following closely behind, staying quiet as they moved swiftly across the clearing. Before they could make it halfway though, Mabel heard a pained gasp behind her, turning just in time to see her brother collapse once more, almost his entire left arm already gone from view.

Panic flooded her system and froze her in place. “Dipper!” she called out, getting Alcor’s attention. He was by Dipper’s side in the blink of an eye, carefully picking him up and making his way to the portal.

Mabel forced her body to unfreeze - Dipper would be okay, as soon as they went through that portal it would all be okay, it had to be okay, he had to be okay - and followed behind at a slower pace, her legs shaking far too much to go any faster without falling over herself.

She could hear the blood pumping through her ears, the sound rising and she pushed forward, eyes darting quickly between their last hope and what little of her brother Mabel could see from behind Alcor. ‘Everything will be okay, everything will be alright, everything will be fine’ she thought to herself, a mantra she refused to let wander to the terrifying ‘what if’s’ that lurked on the edge of her mind.

Ahead of her she saw Alcor reach the portal, gently placing Dipper down before bringing all his attention to their only hope of returning home.

The sight helped Mabel to push past those stupid doubts and began to move faster as her legs began to feel more solid and less like her special brand of Mabel Pasta™ (like regular pasta but with more glitter and rainbow coloured yarn) when a rough hand grabbed her right arm.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” the cultist grumbled, their grip tightening.

Mabel’s eyes widened, her throat closing up, and sweat beading down her face. As the looming cultist yanked her closer to them, a knife glinting in their other hand, Mabel’s mind went blank, instinctive fear freezing her in place.

This could not be happening, she was supposed to go to the portal and stay by her brothers side and go home and this was not the plan this was not the plan what was she supposed to do she didn’t have her grappling hook as it was back home she didn’t have anything she could use to fight back she-

“MABEL!” That was Dipper’s voice, he must have woken up from his attack and she tried to force herself to focus on him but all Mabel’s panicked mind let her fixate on was the large hand holding her arm, and the shimmering knife that got closer and closer with each frantic heartbeat.

Suddenly an angry scream drew the cultists attention away from Mabel, the hypnotising knife pulling away it time for her to see Wren running up to them. Before Mabel - or it would seem the cultist - could realise what was happening, Wren punched them in the face, startling them enough to let go, Mabel stumbling to the ground in awe.

“Hands off!” Wren yelled as the two began fighting.

Alcor appeared at her side, his wings curling up protectively around her as he picked Mabel up and brought her over to Dipper and the portal.

“Are you okay?!” Alcor and Dipper asked in unison, bringing a smile to Mabel’s lips.

“Y-yeah I’m good,” she stuttered. “Let’s get this thing going!”

“Right!” Alcor said, concerned eyes lingering on her for a moment before returning his attention to the portal.

His hands moved over it methodically, his fingers twitching as if playing the harp, small wisps of blue flame dancing around them. A frown began to form on his face the longer he worked, his eyebrows coming together and nose scrunching up.

Mabel could see Dipper open his mouth, she imagined to ask what was wrong, but before he could a startled shout from Wren grabbed all their attention.

“Look out!”

Running their way was another cultist and surely, surely, there were not that many left.

Yelping Mabel jumped out of their path, seeing Alcor grab Dipper and jump out the way himself just in time for the cultist to skid through the portal, their angry cry cut short.

“Is that going to be a problem?!” Dipper shrieked, the three of them staring wide eyed at the portal.

“No, you won’t have to worry about them,” Alcor said, letting go of Dipper’s shoulders.

“Cause it’s connected to a different dimension now?” Mabel asked.

“Ehhhhhhh.”

“R-right?”

Alcor averted his gaze, scratching the back of his head as he seemed to look anywhere but the two of them. “Uhhh, yeah yeah totally!” he said, moving back to his previous position in front of the portal, hands starting to work again. “And definitely not because this thing currently has the same internal structure of a blackhole and ripped their fragile fleshy body into a million exponentially smaller pieces,” he muttered and wait what? That could not be right. Looking at the odd expression on Alcor’s face, Mabel figured it was probably for the best if she pretended she did not just hear that.

“What was that?” Dipper asked.

“Nothing!” Alcor said with a wonky smile. “Time to make sure this thing will, safely, get you guys back to your dimension.”

~~~

It had not taken too long for Wren to dispatch the rest of the cultists after that. Alcor watched out of the corner of his eye as she tied up the last one before wandering over to the three of them huddled around the portal.

It was wider now, almost circular in shape, with a near hypnotic swirl of rainbow colours slowly spinning around its edge.

“Are you sure that’s safe now?” Wren asked, eyeing the portal with distrust.

“Oh definitely,” Alcor said, sticking his arm through it as if to prove so before pulling it back out.

“I realise given my powers that probably didn’t actually prove anything but I promise it’s perfectly safe now,” he added, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head with the same arm.

Mabel could not help but laugh at his sincere awkwardness. To think Alcor being an alternate Dipper had been a surprise when they first found out. She couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at the absurdity of that.

“So this is really happening? Can we really go home now?” she asked, the hope that filled her heart making her small smile grow ever larger.

“Is this actually it?” Dipper added, a cautious hope of his own seeping into his voice.

Alcor merely smiled and stepped aside, moving his arms as if presenting the portal to the both of them. “You guys ready to leave this dimension and finally go home?” he asked with a dramatic flourish.

“Yes!” the twins cheered in unison, making the two adults laugh.

“Good luck you two,” Wren said. “I still don’t a hundred percent understand what exactly is going on with all this but I’m glad I could help out. Here’s hoping Alcor isn’t lying about you getting better when you go through that thing.”

“Hey! I would never!” Alcor protested, much to everyone else's amusement.

“Thank you, both of you,” Dipper said, looking up at Alcor, tired and tentatively optimistic eyes meeting human ones, before sharing a small smile.

“Yeah! We couldn’t have done this without your help,” Mabel added, her smile the brightest it had been since this whole ordeal had started.

Alcor let out a small chuckle. “Well I’m happy to have helped, and all things considered it was nice meeting you guys,” he said, ruffling Mabel's hair.

“You too!”

“I guess you weren’t that bad, in the end,” Dipper mumbled with a smile.

At that they all laughed, enjoying the moment.

The twins stood before the portal and gave each other a smile.

“Ready?” Dipper asked.

“As I’ll ever be!”

With one final wave goodbye, Dipper and Mabel stepped through the portal.

~~~

Bright sunlight shone overhead, its light sprinkled over the forest floor through thick leaves, the subtle glow from the thin sliver of torn reality mixing with it. The portal rippled, suddenly growing wider as two small forms stumbled through, collapsing next to each other.

Mabel instantly jumped up, looking at her familiar surroundings, the same trees and rocks she had seen just days before. The deep pit that had previously settled in her stomach dissolving instantly with the growing sense of recognition, her true smile finally returning.

Dipper watched as his arm and hand rapidly returned, flexing his fingers as they re-materialised. He looked up at his sister who’s smile said it all.

“We’re finally home,” Dipper said, the realisation truly setting in as he spoke.

The two began rushing in the direction they remembered the Mystery Shack to be in, neither able to stop the smiles from pulling at their cheeks, not that they would have cared too. As their home away from home came into view, they knew it really was all going to be alright.

~~~

A/N OH MY GOD I FINALLY FINISHED!!!! After almost THREE YEARS I can FINALLY say I've finished the Other Way :D Thank you everyone who decided to give my little fic a read and an especially big thank you to all of you who commented I love each and every one of you SO MUCH!! I can't promise I'll write anything after this cause if I've learnt one thing from my experience writing this it's that I do not have the patients to be an author haha, but who knows maybe in three years from now I'll appear out of the void and share something new ^-^ (but probably nothing with more than one chapter, at least for now, I've learnt my lesson haha)

Thank you all so much seriously if it weren't for all of you this thing would not exist and despite it's flaws and a chronic lack of proper editing or proofreading I'm really proud of what I achieved, so I truly cannot thank you all enough ^-^

#transcendence au #reverse transdimensional au arc #gravity falls #dipper pines #mabel pines #alcor #fanfic #the other way #IT'S FINALLY FINISHED #Oh god I just looked at the post for the previous chapter and I joked about the next chapter taking 8 months #oh foolish me for thinking that was a long time #meanwhile 3 years later xD #If you're new the rest of the chapters are on AO3 under thatdisastrousfangirl #and on my now abandoned writing blog thatdisastrousfangirl-writes #both of which I have linked above :3

25 notes · View notes