#you want her to be your gf? love is eternal after all...

[ninamodaffari]

So happy to finally show off my final piece for the Tome of Pacts zine I feature in.

This is Hagne, the Herald of Rot, and faithful servant to her Patron, Cicardia. Her look was inspired by several things -- death masks, pomegranates, worn bronze, flies and centipedes. The butterflies she carries feed on death and decay. Hagne herself felt the cold embrace of the grave, but was blessed to find herself given another chance. She will not fail.

I am so honored to have been a part of this project, and this is one of my favorite pieces to date. I hope you guys enjoy it as well. :)

#hagne #herald of rot #art #my art #concept art #illustration #character design #cw: bugs #cw: pomegranates ;) #costume design #tiefling #dnd oc #warlock #she brings death and decay to wherever she goes #you want her to be your gf? love is eternal after all...

[transmascaraa]

!300 followers special!

giving the fontainians bouquets!

characters: bf!/gf!every fontaine character x gn!reader

author's note: THANK YOU GUYS FOR 300 FOLLOWERS AND I DECIDED TO DO THIS, WELL, THE IDEA WAS SUGGESTED BY MY LOVELY @mariaace AND I THINK IT'S ADORABLE! this is what the poll was about btw lmfao ANYWAYS enjoy<33

✧ Furina

-blushing.

-adorable blushing.

-"o-oh! t-thank you, [name]! i didn't expect such a... beautiful bouquet... but i'm not complaining, don't get me wrong!"

-she would keep that bouquet in your guys' house for the rest of eternity.

-and would combine it with every other bouquet/flower you gave her.

-she loves you 5 times more now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✿⁠ Neuvillette

-"w-well... this is certainly.. unexpected. but.. thank you. you truly are thoughtful."

-he would be flustered but definitely wouldn't try to hide it as many others would.

-it's a really pleasant feeling for him and he sees no point in trying to hide it, especially from the person causing it.

-aka the one he loves.

-keeps the bouquet on his nightstand, making sure none of the flowers die or lose color.

-and if at least one flower does, he'll write you a 10 page paragraph apology with a big bouquet next to it.

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☆ Wriothesley

-"oh, well... thank you, i suppose. *wink*"

-he'd be so much more flirty and teasing after that.

-i mean, he'll keep the flowers and take care of them, but he'll tease you a lot more.

-more frequent winks and smug looks to you.

-he just knows you love it when he makes you blush like that.

-not like you're complaining in the first place.

-and he's expecting more flowers after that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✯ Navia

-THIS BEAUTY OF A WOMAN.

-will definitely blush and elegantly take it in her hands while she smells the flowers.

-"wow... they're so beautiful... thank you, really..!"

-she values your relationship a lot but now she values it even more.

-it really makes her feel loved and appreciated.

-probably would invite you to a dinner date afterwards, where you eat macaroons together.

-and keep the bouquet eternally.

-idk i have a thing for fictional blondes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✷ Clorinde

-she's not playable yet but ughhhh

-she's perfect she would literally blush but still try to keep her intimidating and serious behavior.

-"this is... for me? thank you, i suppose."

-if you tease her about her blushing you'll just make her blush even more.

-but don't do it, let her get comfortable with you aka get to somewhere more private.

-this woman will literally send you a letter signed by "champion duelist" not wanting you to know that it was her.

-the letter consisted of a "thank you." and a purple flower tied to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

⑅ Lyney

-unexpectedly, he would blush really hard.

-like ofc he would do his best to mask it but you can see through him almost like lynette, you've known him long enough.

-"a-ah! mon amour..! this is simply beautiful and so kind of you! but- i'm the one who gives you flowers, not the other way around, right?"

-wether you agree or disagree with him, he will continue blushing.

-will keep the flowers on your guys' living room table, to remind him of this moment anytime.

-do it more and see how much longer he can keep masking all of that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

๑ Freminet

-"w-why thank you, [name]... y-you're really sweet..."

-a blushing mess.

-the flowers will be taken care of, no worries!

-but the way his heart started beating fast when you gave him the flowers made him smile.

-he tried to hide the blushing but he failed, too captivated by your confidence.

-he's probably gonna talk to lyney and lynette all worried with how his dear beloved makes him feel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✪ Lynette

-"this is.. certainly an unexpected gift. thank you sincerely, [name]."

-she'd blush but she's too good at hiding it.

-wether you notice or not, she'll act the same.

-it's not exactly "serious mode" after that.

-but she will keep the bouquet and take care of it.

-she would let you know that she liked it and that she kept it, sure, but not as emotionally as the others would.

-she's adorable when you notice her blushing face tho.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

× Arlecchino

-i had to include her since she's a fontainian too.

-"this is for me? well, i can't say i don't like it, so, thank you, if that's what you wish to hear."

-she's not one of those who would blush, instead, she'd either make you blush, or just let you know that she likes it with a genuine smile.

-honestly, in both situations, she'd make you blush.

-she just has that captivating aura, not like she would blush like a child right then and there unlike lyney

-but yeah i see her keeping the flowers too

-the only difference after that would be her reminding you of that whenever you disagreed with her for whatever reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

⊹ Chiori

-not exactly a fontainian but she does live in fontaine so ig i have to include her

-i love her and i love her personality and i love how she would react.

-"this is all... for me? why, thank you, my dear. i don't remember a time when i felt this appreciated."

-there would be some faint blush on her cheeks but her eyes showed more.

-they showed her thankfulness/gratefulness for you aka for having you in her life.

-now those flowers stand on her shop window, making the boutique look even more stylish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

⊰ Chevreuse

-she's so underrated imo

-she's not used to love/gifts at all but this definitely made her happy.

-"thank you, i guess. i've never received something like this, but i'm glad i finally did. and it's from you."

-i see her having a huge soft spot for you, especially after that.

-will definitely talk to chiori about you and this moment.

-she'll even give you a bouquet a few days after as a sign of gratefulness and returning the favor.

-she cares for you a lot deep down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

YAYYYY I'M DONE<3

i didn't include sigewinne cuz i wanted to make this romantic (i think that's all of them for now btw)

but yeah i hope you guys like it^^

| @mariaace <3

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin headcanons #genshin impact headcanons #genshin fluff #furina x reader #furina x you #neuvillette x you #neuvillette x reader #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x you #navia x you #navia x reader #clorinde x reader #clorinde x you #chiori x reader #chiori x you #lyney x reader #lyney x you #lynette x reader #lynette x you #freminet x reader #freminet x you #chevreuse x you #chevreuse x reader #arlecchino x reader #arlecchino x you #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #STOP THERE ARE SO MANY TAGS LMFAO

[urfavlarry]

Your Overlord! Husk is just so 🫠 So I HAD to request something for him!

Reader works at the Casino. She is Husk's favorite waitress (maybe because she is his gf idk 👀) and deals with rude costumers more often than she'd like. During one of those situations, they corner her for trying to "stick her nose in somebody else's business". Overlord! Husk deals with them before they have the chance to do anything. After the situation is taken care of, he steals her away to dote on her <3

This is the (slightly modified) piece of dialogue that inspired my request. Feel free to use it, if you want!

Reader, backing up: "Gentlemen, gentlemen. Let's be civil about this. Let's make a deal; you leave, and you don't die a second time. How does that sound?"

Sinner: "And how do you intend to kill us, dollface?"

Reader: "Oh, no, I can't kill you. But my boss can. Say hi, boss."

Overlord! Husk, appearing behind reader: "Hi."

I'm aware of how cringe this is, but I couldn't help myself ;;

oh my god this isn’t cringe at all!! i love this sm !! hope ive managed to write this how you wanted and that you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing this<33

warnings: bad grammar, swearing, alcohol, mention of harassment, the sinners might be sexist? (if i forgot anything tell me in the comments)

•

•

Overlord!Husk x waitress reader

You’ve met Husk a few years ago after you have just fallen into the dark place called Hell. You stumbled upon the casino after you accepted that this was your life— well afterlife for the rest of eternity, and damn, eternity is a long time! So you decided to look for a job, a job you had when you were alive; a waitress.

Husk hired you after a week of you being “on trial” as he likes to call it and you were just fit for the job! You had the nerves of a saint since you used to deal with drunk people that drowned themselves in alcohol and decided to throw the tiny bit of dignity away and harass the workers who didn’t really sign up for being harassed. At your old job you were usually the one that calmed fights and disagreements down and people were really grateful for that. You could say you were like the mom of that last bar you worked at!

Today the casino was calmer the usual, just sinners chatting away and dancing on the dance floor or just having a drink after a long day of work. The day was slow yes, but at least you didn’t have shitty customers to worry about; you thought to yourself but then suddenly the bars doors slam open and in come 4 not so friendly looking fox demons. You hated those kinds of demons, they usually tried to steal and just make your afterlife a living hell— well if that’s even possible since you already are in hell.

You shoot your fellow employees a uncertain glance and walk over to the demons to ask if they decided on their drinks. They snickered as they ordered their drinks and whispered to themselves as you went to get the drinks they wanted. The bartender, Chris, was a fellow friend of yours and as he makes the drinks he says with a worried tone; “Hey Y/N I know you’re experienced and shit but please be careful, those guys used to come here often and they like to start fights and they really are not fun to deal with so just, keep your guard up, okay?” He looks at you with genuine worry as he hands the drinks to you and you pick them up with ease; “Don’t worry Chrissy i’ll be extra careful okay? I’ve dealt with assholes when I was alive you really don’t need to worry about me.” You say with a smile and shoot him a wink and walk over to the men that are now playing poker and are betting for a huge amount of money. You place the drinks down and go back to talk with Chris to pass the time.

Husk was in his usual spot in the VIP room of the casino, gambling with some sinners, having a bored look on his face as it was clear the sinner really had no experience. He looks away for a moment to glance to the other side of the casino to see you chatting with the bartender. He smiles for just a bit and looks back at the game. You were quite close since you had both a lot in common and were quite fond of each other. After about a year and a half of you working at the casino, Husk asked you out and you, of course accepted! You got together after that and you couldn’t have been happier. But the only one that knew about your secret relationship was Chris, since you trusted him with that kind of information. You and Husk got married after 2 years of being together and Chris could just tell you two loved each other, you were practically love sick idiots!

“And you know that bitch that took your place while you were sick? She was a total—” You get cut off by the sound of yelling and you turn your head to see what was happening. The fox demons were now yelling and fighting, screaming foul things at each other because the game was apparently “not fair”. You exchange looks with Chris and sigh, walking over to the angered men with a calm look on your face, straightening your uniform.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen! May I ask what is the cause of all of this commotion? You’re disturbing the others that are trying to have a good time.” You say with a calm tone trying to calm the situation and to not raise attention. “Go mind your fucking business bitch you probably put something in our drinks to make us focus less so that asshole can win!” One of them yells and the others nod along with angered looks on their faces. “Im sorry wh—” You get cut off yet again by the one of the angry men; “Just shut the fuck up your so clueless it’s embarrassing you probably don’t even know how to do your job properly” Another one of them says grabbing your wrist to pull you down to his height. Your nose scrunches in disgust since you can smell the alcohol from his mouth and you just pray you don’t throw up in his face. He starts to speak again, clearly still annoyed; “How about you fucking go do your job like a good little lady and bring us another drink.” The demon says with a smirk on his face and lets you go and whistles at you as you go to leave. You turn around and glare slightly at the man but take a deep breath and say; “Gentlemen calm yourselves please, let’s be civil about this, yes? How about you either leave this casino and never come back, or you can treat the employees with respect.” You say brushing off your uniform and look at them with a smile fake like the money they were betting on.

“Yea? Or else what?” One of them asks gaining some new found confidence and smirks at you looking you up and down, licking his lips as if you were some kind of prey. “You get to keep your little afterlife and don’t die a second time!” You say with a sarcastic tone and smile. They start to laugh as if you just said the most hilarious thing in the entire world and look at you like a little child who was born yesterday; “Aww and how does a little demon like you intend to do that?” They all snicker awaiting your answer that they were sure it was gonna be even more hilarious then the previous statement you made.

Husk who heard the commotion and has been watching the interaction from afar for almost 10 minutes was growing more and more annoyed by the second. How dare they speak to his wife like that? They think they can just waltz in here and fuck with his wife? Yeah no. He slowly starts to walk towards you and the men and you notice him out from the corner of your eye and smirk, knowing from the look on his face that he was pissed. Maybe even that was not that much of a strong word to describe the anger bubbling up in his body. You look at the demons in front of you and say; “Perhaps you would like to discuss that with my boss?” You say and step back from the demons who replace their smug expressions with confused glances.

“Is there a problem here gentlemen?” Husk asks raising a brow with a annoyed look on his face as the fox demons now look like they’ve pissed themselves. You smirk at the men flipping them off from behind, sticking your tongue out. Your boss from your old job never really bothered to stand up for his employees so it felt good to finally have assholes like them eat their own shit.

The demons scatter and leave money at the table at mumble apologies towards you and Husk and leave the casino without another word. The employees and some of the customers cheer and whistle and scream at the demons to never come back and you cheer a bit yourself, happy that someone finally stood up for you.

The atmosphere was finally back to its normal calm self and Husk looks at you with a bit of a angered look, not because of you, but because he was still pissed someone would just treat his wife like shit, but of course he looks at you with a hint of worry but he’s careful to not show it since he has a reputation to uphold. “Y/N, my office. Now.” He says as he slowly walks over to the back door for employees and you share a worried look with Chris, he looks at you confused and raises a brow at you. You just shrug your shoulders since you’re just as confused as him but you follow closely behind Husk as he wait for you at the employee door. You both walk to his office not far down the hall and he opens the door and lets you enter first. He enters right after you, closing the door behind him. He stays quiet for a bit ask he smokes his cigarette, looking out from the huge window he had in his office.

You stand there nervously and fiddle with your sleeves, hoping you weren’t in trouble, because you really don’t wanna deal with an angry Husk. He throws the cigarette butt out of the window and turns to look at you. He walks up to you cups your cheek in his hand and asks; “Are you okay my love? Did those fuckers hurt you?” He says with worry evident in his voice and you sigh; “No, no they didn’t do anything i’m fine Husker i’ve dealt with shit like this before..” You say looking away from him frowning slightly grabbing your slightly bruised wrist. “I don’t take shit like that to heart.” You say with a smirk.

He smiles softly at you and pulls you closer grabbing you by the waist; “I know Doll I just wanted to check on you, you know? Those guys really are pieces of shit and i’ve wanted to shut them up for a while now, but you did that pretty well yourself~” He says with a smirk and a teasing tone.

“Yeah, yeah I know i’m just the best.” You say with a playful tone and chuckle. “I’m glad you were worried about me tho. I guess the “heartless Overlord” really does have a soft spot for me~” You giggle teasing the cat demon, you knew very well he cared about you, and you were very grateful for that. Husk wraps his tail around your leg and look you up at Husk, shivering slightly from his touch, but you can’t help but admire his features up close. He smirks at the remark and pulls you closer so your bodies are practically touching and your faces are inches apart. He suddenly dips you, your lips barely apart as he grabs you firmly, careful so you don’t fall and and smiles, a genuine smile you have never seen before, a smile that Husk himself couldn’t believe he had used and says;

“Hm, well love, you might just happen to have a special spot in this dead heart of mine~”

He says and leans in closing the small gap between you two. Your breath hitches at the contact but you don’t hesitate to kiss back, a simple act that made your heart flutter even though you’ve done this a million times before. You smiled into the kiss and you started to wonder how you could have found such a great partner.

It was kind of funny, you really were a match made in hell.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel season 1 #hazbin husk #overlord husk #overlords #overlord #husk x reader #hazbin hotel vaggie #hazbin hotel sir pentious #hazbin hotel niffty #hazbin angel dust #loser baby #vivziepop #vivienne medrano #keith david #husker x you #x reader #reader insert #female reader

[strawberrykisseslia]

ghostin

ellie williams x fem! reader

cw: fluff, tiny bit angst but mostly fluff!!! mention of passed away gf

an: im too obsessed w eternal sunshine but nothing is toppin' ghostin

song rec: ghostin by ariana grande

it has been four years since your girlfriend died. you never seemed to get over it. how could you even? she was your whole world. your first love and first everything.

but now you were able to open your heart up to someone else. that someone else was ellie. you have been dating for two years now. you loved ellie, truly. but all you wanted was to hold her close to your heart once again.

she was really understanding of the whole situation. she understood you. though, you knew that you weren't the best for her.

it's late midnight. the moon's shining through the curtains. you're back facing your girlfriend, who is peacefully dreaming. probably about dinosaurs and stuff like that.

you're trying to hold your tears in. silently sniffing. it's the third time this week that you can't sleep because of your ex girlfriend. she showed up in your dreams again. at this point all you wanted was a peaceful night. when you could just sleep through the whole night.

in reality, ellie always heard you cry. how couldn't she? tears were even rolling down on your face when you were dreaming. only if you knew this. it would make you hate yourself even more, all you wanted was to give ellie everything she needed.

ellie sighs and wraps her arm around your waist. you feel her breathing close to your neck. "baby?" her voice is quiet and tired. you sniff once again and turn around to face her. you try to force a small smile up on your lips but fail. after having another dream of your last girlfriend, you couldn't just smile.

"i'm sorry." you mumble out as you're looking everywhere but ellie's eyes. her hand goes up to your cheek. you finally look at her and find a comforting smile sitting on her face. it was always nice seeing her smile. "there's nothing to be sorry for." she tries to comfort you. it helps at least a tiny bit.

"was it a bad dream again?" it's hard to talk about because it wasn't a bad dream exactly. it was just hard to only be able to be with her in your dreams. you just nod and with a sigh, you close your eyes. "everything will be alright. don't worry." her words are really comforting right now. they mean a lot to you.

"we'll get through this, we'll get past this." she strokes your hair and you can feel yourself calm down. all you need right now is just her. her warm words and warm touch. but you couldn't help but feel guilty because you put her through a lot too. and you know you break her heart when you cry over her.

"i love you, you know that?" you open your eyes while waiting for her response. she nods and smiles. "i do. i love you too. with all my heart." she pulls you closer and rests your head on her chest. you can't help but melt into her touch. you wrap your arms around her waist and just hold her close.

you prayed for god not to take away this girl from you again. you just can't lose her. you wouldn't be able to go through that pain again.

#female reader #lesbian #lgbtq #ellie williams #ellie x fem reader #ariana grande #the last of us #the last of us part 2 #fluff #ellie the last of us #ellie wiliams #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x you

[souyasbabyy]

your instagram while dating ran

I'M BACK YAAAAAY AND WITH RAN! ran is FINALLY here!!!! he has been requested to me 100 times and i'm not even joking LJEFINGDGNEAH i love y'all though so here it finally is even though i took an eternity to do it (i wanted to tag everyone that requested him to me but i lost everythink in my askbox :/)

liked by ran_haitani, izan_a & 438 others

y/n: the lady after us hates us

view all 45 comments

ran_haitani: LAZLMRJERA

izan_a: why?

└ y/n: she was yelling at us to come out

liked by ran_haitani, rin_doou & 565 others

y/n: i love you too i guess

view all 45 comments

ran_haitani: wdym you guess?

└ y/n: 🤷‍♀️

h4nma__: i could be a better boyfriend than him

└ ran_haitani: dude? remove your ass from my gf's mention and her dms too

liked by ran_haitani, kakuhitto & 657 others

y/n: 🤐

view all 76 comments

mad_shi0n: bro caught simping

└ ran_haitani: laugh 'til you can

└ mad_shi0n: you're gonna tie my shoelaces?

└ y/n: BAHAHHAHAEHFGEI

liked by ran_haitani, mad_shi0n & 765 others

y/n: i wanted him to dress up as ghostface FOR ME and he was just scaring kids, men this days

view all 56 comments

rin_doou: it's on you, you could see it coming

└ y/n: 😔

ran_haitani: don't act like you weren't laughing the entire time

liked by ran_haitani, h4nma__ & 679 others

y/n: 🎆

view all 45 comments

rin_doou: YOU GOT THERE WITHOUT ME

└ y/n: you were sleeping

└ ran_haitani: deadass snoring

└ rin_doou: i hate you two

└ ran_haitani: you know that's not true

#mel 🌻 #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers imagine #tokyo revengers headcanon #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo revengers smau #ran smau #ran headcanon #ran x reader #tokyo revengers ran #ran haitani #ran and rindou #ran haitani x reader #ran haitani imagine

[chaifootsteps]

You know what i think would have been interesting? if instead of adam and lute being horrible to vaggie when they see her in heaven, they realize that they can use her relationship with charlie to spy on lucifer and hell. they could have tried to manipulate vaggie into working for them (well, more than their half-assed attempt in the show) "don't you hate it in hell? don't you see how horrible those sinners are? don't you miss your wings? your friends? your family? we can let you come back, you can have your old life back! all you need to do is a little something for us" hypothetically this would work better if chaggie wasn't established yet and vaggie had an actual arc of choosing charlie and her new life in hell over adam and lute and her old life in heaven instead of whatever they tried to do with the "fight for love" song. i also think vaggie should have an old crush on lute that lute uses to manipulate her since it would be another way for the show to explore abusive relationships. maybe lute could even be her ex to show that women can also be perpetrators of domestic abuse? eventually vaggie comes to appreciate the sinners and befriends them and then she realizes that spying on hell for heaven is wrong and she doesn't want to do it anymore. she comes clean to charlie and instead of charlie immediately forgiving her after being upset for a few hours vaggie actually has to prove herself and show that she's changed. show her struggle to accept being kicked out of heaven! show her learning to adapt to her new life! show her struggling with her loyalty! give her some character development, dammit!

I kind of threw the idea of vaggie having a crush on lute in there but now that I'm thinking about it there's so much that could be done with it. if you go with the "heaven is homophobic" route, vaggie could be a repressed lesbian. she has a crush on lute but she knows it could never happen and it eats her up inside. maybe during one of the executions she sees a brothel and thinks it could be a way to release some of her pent up sexual frustrations. she visits the brothels in hell on occasion (assuming she could find a way to sneak down there using the execution portal or whatever) and sleeps with the women. at first she only saw them as a way to let off steam, but eventually she starts seeing the sinners she sleeps with as people who she actually likes. she spends some time after her sessions talking with them and getting to know them and she starts to empathize with them. she even starts talking to sinners who aren't prostitutes and befriends a few of them. she starts feeling less and less enthusiastic about the executions, and instead of refusing to kill a random kid, it's one of the prostitutes that she refuses to kill (i imagine that she doesn't wear her exorcist armor when visiting hell so the sinners don't recognize her during the executions. he wings could just be hidden or something) when lute sees this, she demands that vaggie explain herself, and vaggie tells her everything, even about her crush on lute. and that's when lute decides to banish her and cut off her wings, telling her that she's filthy and that if she loves her sinner whores so much she can spend all of eternity with them.

If you don't want heaven to be homophobic, you can just go the route of lute being vaggie's abusive gf, and instead of vaggie seeking out prostitutes due to her repressed sexuality, she does it to find some intimacy outside of her abusive relationship and as a way to regain some control in her sex life. she realizes that despite being sinners, the prostitutes are much nicer to her than lute ever was, and when lute finds out she banishes vaggie out of jealousy and feeling betrayed (i like this version better tbh. not that i want to ship vaggie and lute, i just think it would make for an interesting story)

After being banished, she struggles to adjust to hell. She's angry and distraught about what happened to her and she just wants to go back. when she hears about the hotel, she thinks it could be her ticket home and decides to check it out, and that's when she meets charlie! charlie is so much different than lute. she has so much power as the princess of hell, but she never uses that power to hurt people. she treats vaggie better than anyone has before and vaggie gets a taste of the happy relationship she's always wanted, but she's scared to commit because she afraid that charlie could end up abusing her, too. she's a demon after all, and lute told her demons are violent and dangerous. but as time goes on, she loses her fear and comes to love charlie, but they don't end up together until after vaggie reconciles for her betrayal. charlie was heartbroken by all the lies vaggie to old her, but when she learns about how lute treated her she comes to understand why vaggie did what she did. it's not an excuse, but it's a path towards forgiveness, and charlie wants to help her and show her that there's a beautiful world full of love waiting for her. she doesn't have to be afraid anymore, because charlie won't let anyone hurt her again. maybe there can be a point in the battle with the exorcists where lute continues to try to manipulate vaggie and charlie stands up for her! like she should have done with val!

This could also create such a nice dynamic between angel dust and vaggie! vaggie hates angel dust at first due to either internalized homophobia or her blaming sex workers for what happened to her. then when she finds out about how val treats him, she relates it back to how lute treated her and they find common ground. maybe vaggie could have been the one to sing "loser baby" with him!!! and it would've worked so much better because she actually had experience with abuse and it would have come across as actual solidarity instead of "get over it loser" it doesn't have to be a romantic song, it can be a song between friends! maybe she doesn't tell angel dust that she's a former executioner at this point, but she says she's been abused in the past. she says that she got out of it in a really horrible way, but she's in a better place now and she knows there's a better place for him, too. and then when it's revealed that vaggie was an angel, angel dust confronts her and thinks she lied to him about everything, but she tells him about her relationship with lute and angel dust sympathizes with her, relating it back to val. she says that she was spying on hell because despite how horrible lute was, she wanted her back, and angel dust reasponds with "if i had escaped from val, i think a part of me would want him back, too" because it's common for victims to want to go back to their abusers. maybe angel dust could have been the first one to give her a second chance as someone who knows how abuse can lead to someone to do desperate things.

Don't get me wrong, it would've been horrible for vaggie to sleep with people while hiding the fact that she's one of the exorcists out to kill them, and giving the exorcist an advantage by spying on them while maintaining a "false" friendship with the sinners would be bad. but those are flaws that she would actually have to work on and get better! and maybe not everyone would forgive her, but she tries her best to be a better person! like an actual character arc!!!

dammit now I'm thinking about how we could have had such good gay/lesbian solidarity with angel dust and vaggie and now I'm sad. oh what could have been.... sorry this got longer than i expected i just think there was so much more HH could have done with vaggie overall and especially with her being a fallen angel. she could've had an actual dynamic with adam and lute! and lute could've had more depth and motivation outside of just being adam's pick-me girl! now i kind of wanna make this into its own thing... maybe not a HH rewrite but i wanna do something with this idea cuz i actually really like it. maybe I'll make some OCs? idk. thanks for listening!

The drama, the intrigue! The twists and turns! This is what we could have gotten if Hazbin belonged to a real writer, and of course it doesn't so we never will.

#Anonymous #viv stuff #actual blog post

[pink-november]

Slay the Princess Endings poorly summarized

warning big spoilers ahead

A New And Unending Dawn

you and the squad kill your gorgeous, divine, irreplaceable other half, the goddess of change and growth, containing death in her multitudes and everything that gives meaning to life and existence, in an attempt to birth a new reality where she doesn't exist any longer to prevent the heat death of the universe or something and definitely not because you got distracted of the philosophical debate you just had with her prior to going to her heart and especially not because you're a Narrator simp (Narrator route when????) or something, noooo sir. atleast you and the gang have each other, right? time heals all wounds after all, even one as irreversible as this.

Leave as Gods Ending

you awake as your greater self, cosmic wings spanning far and wide and shattering the construct you and her are trapped in. she tells you she loves you and though violence and conflict color your dance, you are now together for all eternity. a thousand sunsets and sunrises welcome you, worlds are born anew and worlds are torn asunder as you travel from reality to reality, universes blooming and dying, hand in many many many lovable hands, never to part as you continue the cycle that the Echo sought to tear apart due to His own hubris. you and her, forever.

Leave the Cabin Together

there is nothing but the two of you, once more at the beginning of everything, godhood a terrifying concept to grasp, everything that was once unknowable reduced to the shapes The Narrator gave and nurtured through the trials and pain and happiness you experienced throughout your journey. it is okay. she will be with you. uncertainty fills you both but your love triumphs still and you join hands once again, shadows of your former selves, lesser but enough, ready to face the future… together.

Loop Ending

you and the best boi ever (and other best boi if done right) take the pristine blade ready to confront the Princess once again but oh shit you don't wanna be alone again or become gods because the people outside the construct would just continue to suffer either way fucking hell who gave the birb of stasis and epitome of passiveness the capacity to make reality-altering choices and expect a good thing out of it??? gf seems to disagree with the sentiment (bless her kind and loving heart) and continues to accept everything about you and suggest another option: go back to the beginning, do everything all over again before you knew the truth, and trust that you might make the same choice once more if you find yourselves back here. seems reasonable. you confess to each other before the princess stabs you again and-

You're on a path in the woods-

Oblivion Ending

you deny and deny and deny and deny and deny, your rejection of your Other here hurts her more than any other routes you could have done. you starve your Other of her potential, shrinking yourself in the process of this endeavor. your Other is betrayed in such a way you cannot fathom yet and probably never will, do you even understand the magnitude of the pain you inflicted on her? can you even still? you are bliss. you are agony. there are no wrong decisions, only fresh perspectives. you are bliss. you are agony. you left her to wither. you are bliss. you are agony. hollowness fills the space that is once you, becomes you, and continues to be you. you are empty. you made the wrong choice. you are nothing. you are oblivion. you are together. you exist.

A New And Unending Dawn and Everything about this ending is fucking horrible it physically pains me inside to hear the littol guys be so angry and throwing curses at me. paranoid calling me torturer hurts my kokoro fuck fuck fuck nooooooo -100000/10 ending tbh you just killed your wonderful eldritch gf for this new reality and all your voices fucking hates you??? The Narrator isn't even here to tell you did a good job for doing what He wanted cuz you obliterated Him during your ascent to godhood *sighs* good fucking luck XP

#slay the princess #slay the princess spoilers #stp spoilers #i accidentally posted this one before i finished it so for anyone who saw the initial draft... oops #guess what my favorite ending is from this lmao

[justanamesstuff]

Loving you is...

Matty feels emotional before a show. He lets his gf know how much she means to him.

A/N: Wasn't planning to post, but here we are. Hope you like it guys ♥ Word count: 0.6 k

Warning: fluff, pre-show anxiety, typos.

“You are so unaware of how beautiful you in fact are.” Matty expressed, after taking a drag from his cigarette. 

She looked at him, taking a peek around the empty back side of the arena. Matty insisted her to tag along with him. He was letting his nerves got the best of him, she wanted to ease it somehow. The girl decided that maybe the best way was to keep him company. 

“Next album's name?” She teased him.

Jokes were a way to comfort each other. Since they were friends until after, Matty confessed his feelings for her and asked to be his boyfriend. They had a long list of inside jokes. She smiled, staring at his uneasy silhouette. 

“Ha-ha…no,” Matty moved his tie from side to side, not happy with the position of it. “The new album…” He continued saying. “Your album-“

“Matt-“ Matty’s girlfriend protested.

They had the conversation about him writing about her multiple times along the years. She wasn’t all too comfortable with the idea. It wasn’t like she felt ungrateful, on the contrary. Even though, thinking about strangers and not so strangers know about the love she was happy to feel and live without the rest of the world knowing, made her mind spiral.

“It’s going to be more conceptual,” Matty kept going, because he was adamant to write an entire album about her, about the love of his life. “Because you like those more. The name it’s going to be shorter probably…still thinking about it.” He admitted to her, as well as he tried -expecting her not to notice- to bring her onboard. 

“You are going to do it, huh?” She smiled wide at him. It was so hard to be mad at him for longer than five minutes.

“‘Course baby…who else I’m going to write about if it’s not you?”

“Don’t know…politics?” She shrugged her shoulders, folding her arms in front of her body. 

“I can add a pinch of that, but no,…it’s going to be about-” Matty brought her into a hug. “Founding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. And not in a vague, empty, stereotyped way…” He went into a spiral of words, explaining his idea. “Really, it’s going to be about founding you.” Matty stated, leaving a sweet kiss on her nose. “You're not the other half missing, as I’m not that for you either. It’s this thing I feel-” He patted his chest, on the place his heart was. “When I’m with you…about feeling, in a way, complete. Also, you make me better, I want to be better when I’m with you…be better for you-“

“There’s no one better for me than you, Matty.” She spoke lower, so only he can hear, even when they were alone. 

“I know…I know now! Sharing this life with you lights up everything…and I don’t want to say that every past pain, ended relationship, was worth it because I would found you at the end, but it was- It is.” Matty let his girlfriend know. “I’m sorry, I’m getting emotional, and ramble like a fuckin’ idiot.” Matty apologized, running his hand through his curls. 

“Don’t be sorry…come here…” She managed to pull him in a tight hug without spilling the tears polling in her eyes. 

Matty pulled slowly back, to rest his forehead on hers. 

“I love you so much…and words aren’t enough. I’ve never imaged I can feel this deep about someone. I do now.” 

“I love you too, baby.”

“Please don’t leave me, ever.” He pleaded, wearing his feeling on the sleeve of his shirt. 

“I won’t.” His girlfriend promised. 

“Spend eternity with me?”

She let a cute laugh out. “Sure, sounds like a nice plan!”

#maty healy #matty healy fic #matty healy blurb #matty healy x reader #matty healy x you #matty healy x y/n #matty healy imagine #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy the1975

[gildeddlily]

side characters ONly can be gay!!11!1! yep

I could write an essay about the way Marvel is just the reflection of how mass media deals with the queer representation "problem" nowadays

(I should study for my exam but fuck it I have time)

first of all, how many queer characters actually are part of mcu's big ass cast?

Searching on the internet they'll tell you about twenty- but it's enough to read who is queer to understand that they only care about seeming all woke and you know, kind and allies and all that good shit, but the truth is that if you're queer you'll get no more than five minutes of screen time

Loki is a bisexual genderfluid god, it's canon in the comics and in the shows/film, but does he actually acts on it? like, does he ever talk about the men he had a thing with? does he talk about his gender identity? no. and you know what, I don't want a long speech about feeling accepted and finding your place in the world and understanding yourself, I'd be ok with him being like "yk what, i feel like cunt today" and poof tom hiddleston is no more man.

we have a two second shot were he's labeled as genderfluid. that's it. he has a love story arc with his female alternative version.

like saying the bar can't get lower- all the time there's a man at his side, and they're so queer coded guys. they are so fucking queer coded. they'd have all the potential to be a good couple, and they prob could since Loki is canonically attracted to males too! but no.

let's choose the female you over the dilf grabbing your waist and telling you that you're more, that you matter and have a chance to be good.

can Loki count as representation? maybe.

it's shitty representation, tho.

then there's America.

America's a lesbian, daughter of two lesbian women, and they were proud of it probably- if it weren't for the fact that America's there, she live the adventure, and she has a lgbtqia pin. a pin. all her identity is expressed in a pin.

one could say, but the film is not ab America and her non-male partner, is about the story yk?

then why does every fucking marvel film features a man and a woman being in a relationship?

i guess that when it's about man Tony Stark and woman Pepper Potts everything's ok, you can give all the minutes you want to their sweet relationship- but if they're queer I'm sorry, the best thing you'll have is a pin.

then a few gays out there.

random man in endgame missing his bf. random girl in hawkeye mentioning her wife (slay). that one sexy dora milaje who has a sexier gf. slay you too ig. that Eternals guy who kissed his bf on screen (first time ever, and they feel revolutionary. fucking 2021).

the only thing that can be saved is Thor 3/4 because of Taika Waititi. the queerness is something Taika did because he wanted to.

Ragnarok's about this dude, his bi brother, this guy who flirts with both of them and has orgies with all kind of beings, a lesbian valkyrie and a gay rock. Love and Thunder is about this guy, his bamf ill girlfriend, a lesbian valkyrie who's trying to find some girl to eat out, a gay rock that ends up having strange sex with his bf, and greek people fainting after seeing said guy's naked body. (and that weird moment between Thor and Peter? that was made to be gay guys)

while it's not perfect, it's one step above everything else.

Taika Waititi's film's queerness is not there for looking more inclusive, it's there because gay people are there, we actually exist dude, and they deserve their space, and they should have it.

and like Taika Waititi's said, the world will be healed when people will stop saying "oh you know that new marvel series? yes, there's a gay gal in there", when people will treat queer people like the people they actually are.

it's like walking around in a forest and being like "oh look, a tree!". we aren't a different species ffs

representation is good, and of course gay characters sometimes are gonna be just there on the side cheering on the main character- because that's how life goes. I'm the cheering-from-the-side girl queer friend to my straight friend, and mcu stories are told by straight people, so it's kinda natural that we're kinda useless.

the thing that really, really makes me want to cry our is how they're able to destroy any queer "lead" they put here for us, for me, and I'm starting to believe behind those scripts there are some seriously repressed gay dude who can only express themselves by writing those things.

like Steve and Bucky? the classic we're best friends and we totally didn't have sex?

or Bucky and Sam?

why was the chair scene necessary? If i see something like that happening to a woman and a man my first thought is "they're a thing", and it was the first thing I thought with Sam and Bucky too- but ofc people will tell us "y are you making everyone gay?" it's not my fault princess it's the writers'

or, again, Loki and Mobius?

"you can be good, just in case no one ever told you" WHAT THE HELL DUDE

and you know, those things can be said between two friends too, but people gets disperate. I get disperate, after watching hours upon hours of two guys eye-fucking each other and ending up being all "yeah bro i love you this is my girlfriend amy". so I wrote, I draw, I think about them being "hey dude, d'you want to be the amy to my myself?" because the alternity is writing a fic about a random man who says he misses his husband on a three second scene.

(in a fandom like good omens I don't have to worry about it. I have my queer besties, my fav lesbian couple, and a lot of representation.)

so.

mcu's representation is bad representation.

every time they write a queer characters they're all "you see that? we did that!" like they did something special- but they didn't.

they write gays for the straight, in order to feel better about themselves and make straight racist sexist homophobic ppl (the "I'm inclusive guys!!!" kind of person) watching it feel better ab themselves.

(I'm not gonna start talking about the fact that this entire post talks more than anything else about the way the mcu treats women, bc it's a rabbit hole I'm not ready to talk ab cause I've been jumping in it for too many years.)

(sorry anon ily)

10/20 edit: valkyrie is bi my bad🧎‍♀️

#lgbtqia representation #lgbtq community #queer #marvel #i hate marvel #mcu #mcu loki #loki season 2 #america chavez #bucky barnes #mobius #lokius #sam wilson #bad representation #they make me so mad

[onewholivesinloops]

satoko choosing to drop the chandelier on herself and rika so they can die 'when they're at their most beautiful with their feelings connected' and it's satoko metaphorically saving her memory of rika like 'pressing a flower' as well as literally taking her back from st. lucia for all eternity, then being happy with rika killing her after hearing her declaration of love about how she'd rather do something she despises like looping and destroying everything else than be separated from satoko bc she still can't believe in a happy future or trust others and she wants to die assured of the one truth that rika really loves her. it's just like how sayo wanted to carry out her own murder suicide bc she believed love can become eternal in the golden land as long as everyone dies before it's given the chance to fall apart in the future. satosayo "love can become symbolically eternal if you commit murder suicide with your loved ones" gfs stay winning

#that's something takano also has in common with them! #it's the whole *gestures vaguely at takano's desire to have her grandfather's research recognized so they can become gods* #takano may not be a witch but she does have the hallmarks of one #her whole motive also hinges on the idea of 'reviving that which has been lost' (her relationship with her grandfather) #and she wants her existence and his to be recognized through their life work so they can become eternal in a symbolic sense and be together #gamo.txt

[diosama27]

Part 1 - insecure chubby reader

#Fluff

AN: yn is a chubby girl who loves to eat, sleep and play around all day in her house, an above average student, basically an introvert who stays to herself, whose not a person that would be influenced by others.

So even if you're bullied you will get back at them. But still you're very much insecure because of your weight

You walk to school, just another normal day after the summer vacation, as you walk into the class you could hear gossips from girls, they were speaking about the new transfer student.

All you could hear was "he was soooo tall!!!" "I wish i could be his gf" "kyaaa!!! How can someone be sooo handsome" "he looks like he jumped out from some manga or something"...etc...etc...etc..

Yn wonderd about the so called handsome new guy who could create so much fuss despite being in the campus just for mins

"Was he really that good-looking, like really??"

(AN: Bell rings, teacher comes in and introduces the new transfer student)

Girls were happily cheering for this guy who didn't even mind giving a good introduction for himself.

Well he's tall, handsome and kind of like the cool type guy but still he's tooo cold and has one hell of an attitude

His name was jotaro, he got transferred for some personal reasons and that he's gonna continue the rest of the highschool years here.

He was allotted his seat and the rest was just the same usual normal day.

As days went by yn could literally see girls throwing themselves at him, but still getting rejected heartlessly

"Atleast he could tell them he's not interested. His attitude makes my blood boil."(AN: That's what makes him kakkoii )

Sometimes you find him staring but it feels different like it's just a normal way for people to look but when he does this it feels embarrassing.

You want to know what he thinks while staring at you like that.

"Does he think I'm pretty??!! Hell nahhh! I'm fat and I know it. So, does he think I'm disgusting????"

This man always makes you doubt yourself even when you're brimming with confidence

You feel weird. Its not like you never experienced things like this. It's just that you never knew a guy like jotaro will be your type.

You were good at hidding your feelings so it was never a problem but now you feel the need of attention from him

"From him? of all people!" You sigh

Time skip,

(AN: Typical romantic scenario up ahead)

Teacher assigns projects for students in teams of two. Well guess what yn and jotaro gets paired in a team

(AN: Wow i didn't expect that at all?)

You were kind of shocked and happy

(AN: well about the fan girls of jotaro they were pissed but still yn was not the type to go get on people's nerves and still it was just a "project")

First day after the allotment of team:

(yn was not that much of an outgoing person so you expected him to speak up first, but was left hanging (◉‿◉). )

Second day:

Still no conversation blooming

Third day:

Students started their projects. Still nothing has started between you and jotaro. You waited till evening of day 3, loosing all you're patience you texted him.

Yn: Hey. This is Yn.

(AN: ~~An eternity later~~)

Jotaro: *seen*

Yes?

Yn: what about the project? Did you find something?

Jotaro: Meet me at the coffee cafe within an hour.

You can't believe the audacity of this man to literally order you around

Leaving the message on read you started getting ready and controlled yourself from exploding with anger.

On the way you thought about the meeting and felt a bit nervous, because this was the first time you're meeting with a guy, like just the two of you.

It's not that you're uncomfortable with guys, it's just that you never felt the need to go out, but you would hangout with some friends once in a while.

You were nervous but still managed to keep it all together and not get flustered in front of this Mr. Attitude.

After reaching the cafe you saw the guy sitting in a corner hiding his face with his cap still maintaining his cool figure and a group of admirers shooting draggers of love at him.

You saw a pack of files on the table you then knew that he had some topics organized for the project.

After you take a seat he handed some files to you "so he actually did all this?" Were your thoughts

You were surprised but still it was expected since he was the guy who did answer all the questions pointed out to him.

After going through some papers y'all went back home after some time your phone buzzed.

Jotaro: did u reach home?

You were just too shocked to answer the text so after some serious mind - claculations you understood it was just normal for a person to ask this (AN: well he's not though)

So you replied

Yn: yes. You?

Jotaro: yes

You finished the project and got an exceptional grade together.

As a token of appreciation you thought of inviting him for dinner because he was the one who did most of the work and you also realised your change of feelings for him.

You felt that jotaro was someone who is reliable, inspite of you being fat and everyone just avoiding or like acting out of will with you he was different he was the only one who didn't change.

He didn't act friendly, or show pity because of lack of friends you had cause of you're weight.

You didn't know how or when you started falling for this cold hearted man without even knowing.

You expected to be his first priority, even though you didn't have the guts to say it out to him.

He literally rejected all other "perfect girls" so you knew you didn't have any chance from the beginning.

As days went by you wanted to get rid of these feelings but instead they grew more, everytime a girl trys to cling around him you wanted him to know that you wanted him, every part of him.

But you were afraid of getting rejected, so you never tried.

Little did you know the feelings were mutual

Poor Yn ;)

#anime #chubby #jotaro x y/n #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo's bizarre adventure #jotaro kujo #school #chuby girl #chub love #jotaro fanart #jojo fluff #chubby reader

[berrieluv]

Hiiii can I please get a smutty blurb or fic with Remus Lupin x gf!reader where his partner doesn't feel good about herself physically & has low self esteem so Remus shows her how beautiful he finds her (only if you feel comfortable writing this 😊❤️) thank you!

this is more blah, blah, blah than smut but the intention is there. tw. allusion to sex, mentions of sex, self image problems, low self esteem, word 'depression' used once, loneliness, i think that's it, it's mostly fluff.

what makes you the one I love.

The days were longer when Remus wasn't around but they are infinite when you're not comfortable with how you look.

Today was one of those days. You left the department you shared with Remus, by yourself, feeling anxious about your reflection in the mirror.

You woke up in a lonely queen size bed, your side of the bed cold as it could be while you were curled up on Remus' side. Clinging to his pillow trying to get a bit less lonely by exhaling the rest of his essence. Remus smelled like chocolate and cinnamon cigarettes – flavor chosen after an argument started because you wanted him to quit it –, now the room only smelled like crumbs and ashes.

Usually, the voice in your head was easy to ignore. Not because Remus was always there to shut it down but because you felt truly happy. Complete and full. There was no voice inside your head telling you "you're not enough" because there was so many good things surrounding you, you had no time to think about it.

Now, it felt like there was nothing. Your home smell like a regular house, not a cozy familiar place, it was almost strange, like you were new to the place even when you've been living there for years now.

You walked to the kitchen after almost fifteen minutes of staring at yourself in underwear, you couldn't say if your body changed or it was just your mind, what you used to love now looked ugly in your eyes, you frowned while thinking about it. All this change in your mindset couldn't only be because of Remus absence. There has to be something else, it wasn't the first time he was away, but it was the first time you felt like this. Again.

You barely felt hungry, eve though you had nothing to eat yesterday, so you force half a sandwich into your stomach, feeling sick by the taste of it and too tired to chew on.

Days without Remus were longer but tolerable, you could always go through the day even if it seemed to last more than its twenty four hours. But now, feeling like this, being sit on your work seemed uncomfortable.

You couldn't get to sit right, not finding a place for your back to not hurt, your muscles felt little and no matter how much you tried to stretch them, it still the same.

Almost half of your workday consisted on you stretching the fabric of your blouse, trying to get it away from your skin, careful to not get your torso or arms visible. And it was exhausted, your chin felt tense and you didn't know what to do to relax it, everything seemed impossible.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you were able to go home. To sunk in your bed and drown into your current state of depression and loneliness.

The way back home felt almost as long as the time you lasted working. But you finally did it, and you had to give yourself a pat and a 'Good job' arriving home because you made it to another day.

You enter avoiding your reflection on the entry mirror, trying to avoid the feeling of concern after you find out how you looked in the day.

"Hey, there you are, pretty girl"

Remus said, his voice felt almost like a hug and you couldn't explain how but the once cold-white-light coming from the bulbs was not yellow, called, not cold anymore but warming. You saw Remus and your whole body seemed to relax. The painful force settling down on your chin was now far gone.

"Hey"

You quietly murmur, too tired to even say something. Your heart felt complete now but your body and your mind felt tormented.

"Just 'hey'?" He wondered with a smile, looking at you with shiny and composite eyes "Though you'll be happier to see me, doll. Been out for too long"

"Yeah, I've miss you..." You start, walking to him and hiding your face in his chest "...so much. 'S been a long day, just that. Just a bad day"

You murmur, more for you than for him to hear. He does anyway because what's the use of a good ear if it wasn't to have it completely paying attention to your girl.

"Why was it a bad day, bun?"

You shrug "Didn't like myself. How I look wasn't... pretty"

"Well I can imagine that" He chuckles "You look wonderful every day. Stunning. You're the most beautiful girl to ever walk on earth, just common sense you don't look 'pretty', baby"

"Mmmh" You complain, almost painfully for him to listen "Just not good, at all. None of those words"

Remus felt bad, even if none of it was his fault, he's allowed to have his own interests besides you, but leaving you alone in such a state was just wrong for him, because in his mind, he should've been there.

"What's wrong, darling?"

It was like he called the tears, all this days without expressing your feelings were abruptly falling into you.

"I'm... I just... Reeemmy..." You cry, and if it wasn't because he knew you were truly stressed, he would have chuckled at how cute you looked "I'm just, I'm not pretty. And I look bad, and I see myself in the mirror and I want to cry and I think... 'Well, look at you" and then, it's so disgusting, Remmy and I, my mind says, it says you're just, you're just gonna leave and I'm gonna be here, alone, because you don't want to be around me anymore and I, I don't want you to leave but you deserve someone prettier because you're so pretty, Remmy and you deserve the best looking woman in the world and I..."

You kept rambling for a few minutes, Remus was unable to stop you, he just kept you press to his chest, hugging you with love and compassion. He could've say something, he could've stop your rambling and tell you it wasn't true, but he knew what you needed weren't words. You didn't need a man interrupting you on your outburst of feelings, and he knew you really needed to get all of it out.

"But my darling..." He started once you finished "You're more than what I deserve" Remus chuckles "I asked God for an angel and he gave me you" He kissed your forehead "And I thought; a whole Goddess and it's only for me to love'" Now he kisses your lips "I wanted to not feel alone and instead I got my partner in crime. My other half, my complement" Remus lips are now on your neck, your tears streaming down your face from moments ago but a warm, lovely feeling making its way from your heart to your mind "I touched the moon thanks to you. Finally being able to accept myself. Just because of you" His hands start to pull your blouse up, feeling his big hands on your skin "And 'till nowadays, I don't know how I did it but I got you. I charmed you and you're here now, it seemed impossible for me but I did it, so you suggesting I would even think of leaving it's just..." He laughs "Absurd, darling"

Remus has a way with words you've been loving since the day you met him. Improvisation of such beautiful words like this came easy for him, and every sweet moment with him always takes you back to the day he finally ask you out.

His nervous rambling and how he rejected himself before you could even talk, you were lucky to have him. And not just because you were pretty, because you knew that was the last thing Remus care about.

So why do you feel so worthless?

"Care to tell me what's going on there?" He asks with a kiss on your head. He was so pretty and sweet it was unfair "Why don't you let me, just love you, baby? You deserve it. Just you and me, just kissing. No words if you don't want to, that's fine for me"

"Just want it gone, Remmy"

And he nods, knowing exactly what you mean even if you gave him a vague answer.

Remus wastes no time in start kissing you, his soft pink lips moving along yours, his hands take care of your skirt and for now on, it's only you and him, no one else. No thoughts on your mind but him, and how much he loved you even in your worst days. And how much you'll love him on his terrific ones.

"Remus..." you plead when he finally lays you down on bed, when his kisses are traveling through your abdomen a relax moan came out of your mouth, and it turned on Remus more than a pleasure one. Because he knew, right now, what you needed was relaxation, and bringing his girl to the rest she deserves was the aphrodisiac he needed. "Please?"

You didn't even need to ask, Remus mind couldn't be further from making you beg, not wanting to suffocate you with all the stress that edging brought.

When Remus undress himself, the slow and patient movements were mesmerizing, being a long time since Remus and you made love, with all the passion flowering on your skin.

Every time with Remus was better than the last one, and though you could never compare each experience with other, the first time marked an after and before in your relationship, no suffocate pleasure could ever compare to the soft and steady feeling of the first time. Except for this. This time when his only goal was to reassure you, he was in for life and he hoped you were too.

There's moments that establish a before and after. For you and Remus, the first time you slept together showed how committed to the both of you, him and you were. And this one time showed how committed you were, not only with the both of you but with everything that comes in between.

"You are everything I love" He murmurs, you finally reached your breaking point and your lungs were trying to get back the air they let go. Remus kisses your tears and smiles looking at you "You... You make me better. There's not a thing I would think of change, because everything guided me to you. And changing a thing of my life, would be changing what makes Remus Lupin the man you love. And changing a thing of yourself, would change what makes you who I love. I couldn't be more in love with you, with your past, with everything you are and I want you to make this. Change yourself if you want, I'll probably still love you from now on. But if you ever think of changing because of me, then that's not the you fell for"

"Remus what you say makes no sense"

"My love for you makes no sense, but it makes you feel good. That's what the words are for, love. Don't make fun of me" He pouts; "I'm just being nice for my girl"

"But you're right. Maybe if you weren't who you are, nothing would ever lead you to me"

"Don't put that scenario on my mind. I don't want to live any life if you're not there"

#remus lupin fanfic #remus lupin fanfiction #remus x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fluff #the marauders fanfiction #the marauders fic #the marauders fluff #marauders fanfic #marauders x reader

[nevermeyers]

Nah I finished Nosotros en la Luna (Us in the moon, not currently translated to english thank god), which is a love story about two people meeting randomly in Paris, they exhange emails and from then it begins an insufferable path of 🎀 romatizing toxic behavior 🎀 AND I NEED TO TALK SHIT ABOUT IT RN BC IT'S SO HORRIBLE 😩

Like, she's egoistic, controlling and so so inmature while he's the worst cliché to ever exist, the typical l'm so lost in life boy, incredibly jealous who also has parental issues and was the perfect american boy in high-school with a pretty gf (and now he sleeps with a different one every night) yk what I'm talking about right.

The metaphors are SO forced in the narrative. It's so boring and repetitive. Just another story about how she becomes his rehabilitation center 😍

The author makes an effort to give them depth but, honestly, development and clichés don't help. The worst thing is that after chapters and chapters, the author rushes the end in such an absurd way. Suddenly we discover that he has drug addiction and alcoholism problems and it is implied that he has been consuming for a long time but that subject is never touched in a serious way. It's a mockery.

She has a baby but, again, the topic is never touched in a serious real-life way, she talks about having a baby like all she had to do was go and buy him in the supermarket. It is implied she's a feminist but her ideas are not touched in any single way, in fact all she does is being extremely toxic with him and disrespect herself again and again and again. It feels like listening how your bestie went together with her ex again lol

Also, the whole love solves everything ending?? Lmao. This is written for kids at this point, there's nothing realistic nor enjoyable about this novel. At this point I was just reading it bc I wanted to finish it quickly and move on to read something better, also bc I don't like to left books unfinished. This one was eternal, boring and every single positive reflection or critic the characters do turns out to be trashed in the next chapter by how inmature they behave

If you don't see the toxic behavior in this book, please seek help and inform yourself because it's seriously concerning that some people think this is romantic. This is how love IS NOT supposed to be

Also, someone tell the author no one uses email to talk with people as if it were Instagram ☠️

Another overhyped booktok phenomenon that, for no ones surprise, is actually horrible

#english speakers feel fortunate you don't have this in your book stores #@meyers #@meyers reads #anti booktok

[billnoncipher]

Wendip Week 2022: Eight Stories

by William Easley

Though these stories sometimes share elements with my customary AU, they really aren't canon to that series. Each was written as a response to a prompt (the story title) and the conditions were that each story had to be set in 2022 and in some way deal with the past in GF.

***************

Story 1: On 4 Wheels

Who hasn't dreamed of a road trip with someone they love?

Chapter Text

1-On 4 Wheels

(June 2022)

Returning to Gravity Falls after four years of college felt weird. Well, weirder than normal. Dipper, now twenty-two, had last been here the winter when he was twenty. It was just a short visit, squeezed into the long MLK weekend, and he hadn't even stayed in the Shack that time. He only spent one night and then he returned to California and college the next day after Stanley Pines's funeral.

Now, two years and a few months later, he stepped off the Speedy Beaver bus and saw Soos waving at him and giving him his big buck-toothed grin. Around him were kids, a boy who was seven, a girl who was five, another girl who was three. The baby boy was, Dipper assumed, back home with Melody.

"Hiya, dude!" Soos said, cheerfully hefting Dipper's suitcase. "Mabel didn't come with?"

"No," Dipper said with a smile as they climbed into Soos's car. The three-year-old they fastened into the baby seat and the other two were big enough to wear grown-up seat belts. "No, Mabel's wedding is coming up at the end of the month, and you know her. She's deep into planning. She and her new husband plan to honeymoon here, though."

"Sweet!" Soos said. "Uh, mind if I make a short detour?"

"Go ahead," Dipper said. "You're the boss."

"Yeah," Soos said a little sadly.

They stopped at the Catholic church, where Soos showed Dipper a little memorial in the cemetery. "Abuelita's not really here," Soos explained. "She's buried in Mexico in her family's cemetery. But we did this, like, memorial to her. OK, kids, say your prayers."

The little ones clustered around the memorial stone and murmured, "Eternal rest grant unto our Abuelita, Lord, and let eternal light shine upon her." Soos joined in. Then he said, "Good job, kids. Now Abuelita lives with the angels."

From the church they drove straight to the Shack. It was open for business, and Soos said as they got out, "Dude, I have to go be Mr. Mystery. Is your old attic room OK? We, like, cleaned it and all."

"I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else," Dipper told him. They went in by the back way and Dipper carried his suitcase up the stairs and to the attic. The room was a lot neater than it had been the first year he and his sister had shared it, and the beds looked new. Dipper didn't unpack, but he set his bag and backpack down and smiled wistfully at the other bed across the way, still the old one. "Check out all my splinters," he murmured.

He washed his face in the upstairs bathroom and opened his backpack to dig out his old pine-tree cap, a little faded now. Later, he promised himself, he'd go into the gift shop, maybe buy a new trucker's hat if they still sold them, and visit. Not yet. He wasn't up to that yet. A little walk first would do him good.

He left quietly, forcing himself not even to glance into the gift shop. Wendy wouldn't be there, anyway, She had left the Valley, gone to college, then wound up, last he heard, in Portland. She had always wanted to move there some day. He had not heard from her for two years, except for Christmas cards.

Too late to regret, too early to remember.

First he paused at a small, fenced-in spot within view of the Shack. A single grave was there, with a stone for Stanley Filbrick Pines. The inscription beneath was a Psalm in both Hebrew and English: "He heals the broken heart and binds up the wounds."

"Hi, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said, standing beside the headstone and leaning over to place a pebble on it, one among many. People in town remembered him and visited him often. "I'm back for a while. Mabel's going to come and visit with her new husband later in the summer. Your Pumpkin. I just wanted to say thanks for all you did, and rest in peace. Yeah, I'm still a knucklehead."

That done, Dipper walked down the old familiar Mystery Trail to the spot where he and Wendy had sat on a log and had so many talks over the years. There was that time after the Bunker adventure when she'd let him down so gently. There was the time just before she headed off to college.

He sat down on the log, now softened with moss and decay, and talked aloud to the tall redhead now, though she perched beside him only in imagination. "Here I am," he said. "Back because I don't know anyplace else to go. I'm not going to move back in with Mom and Dad. They deserve their retirement and time together. I've got a little bit of money. Well, a lot of money saved up, 'cause when Grunkle Stan died, nobody knew it, but he had about tour hundred thousand squirreled away from something he'd found up in the Arctic. He sold whatever it was and . . . just banked the money and left half to Mabel, half to me. No estate tax in Oregon on the amount that came to us, so it's in my bank. I haven't touched it."

He imagined her saying, "Really man? He would've wanted you to."

"Yeah, but the thing is—here I am with my degree. Double major in physical sciences and in video production. And no way of getting a toe in the door of any studio. I just realized the morning after graduation how useless that diploma's gonna be. My science degree would allow me to teach high school, but I'd need education courses, and I'm sick of school right now. No idea what to do with the rest of my life. So I'm planning to spend a summer here, go out and look for mysteries and anomalies, and . . . be a hermit, I guess. Everybody I was close to's gone. Stan. Pacifica off somewhere in the East, with her second husband. Even Mabel's friends, Candy and Grenda, moved away. Ford down near Cal Tech in an assisted-living place, writing his memoirs. Gonna be lonesome—"

"Who you talking to, man?"

Dipper nearly jumped out of his skin. He scrambled up. "Wendy!"

She stood on the trail smiling at him. Wendy, now, what, twenty-five? Still looking like a late teen, though, tall and lanky and, oh my God, in a green flannel shirt, jeans, and boots! No trapper's cap, but that long, long red hair, those green eyes, the freckles, and her wonderful, sleepy-eyed, crooked smile. She leaned back a little, her elbows crooked, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

For a long moment he just stood and stared at her, his jaw hanging open. She chuckled. "Hey, I'm gonna hug you, dude, if I won't break you."

She spread her arms and embraced him. Then she stepped back and surveyed him. "You turned out hunky, Dip. Talking to yourself? You sound down, so, friend to friend, tell me what's the matter?"

He shook his head and for a moment could not speak with his throat tight and aching. 'Just—just I've been feeling lost. How'd you find me?"

"Soos told me a couple days ago you'd be coming to visit. I stopped at the Shack a few minutes ago and he said you were out someplace. I kinda guessed you'd wind up here."

"I—oh, Wendy, could we just sit here for a minute or two?"

"Yeah, sit down and scoot over."

She sat beside him. "So you graduated, I guess," she said.

He nodded. "Yeah, few days ago."

She nudged him. "With honors, I bet."

Still feeling dazed by her sudden appearance, he murmured, "Phi Beta Kappa." Then he coughed self-consciously. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I've been workin' over in Portland, hardly anything better than an intern job with a start-up company. No money in it, but I got by. What time is it? Early, but have you had lunch?"

"No, early, like you say. I took the bus up from Piedmont, so, uh. No real breakfast, either."

"Brunch!" she said. "Bus, huh? No wheels?"

"I'm just a ground-walker," he said with a grin.

"Soos will let us borrow his Jeep, I bet."

He did. They could have gone out of the Valley to an upscale restaurant, but for old times' sake—Greasy's Diner. It was early for lunch, late for breakfast, but hey, it was Greasy's. They had pancakes and scrambled eggs, coffee and OJ.

And they caught up. "So what are you up to this summer, Dipper?"

"Not much. Just sort of . . . winding down after college. Wondering what to do with my life and not coming up with any answers. How about you?"

"I got exciting plans for the summer. See, I just recently landed a new job. I mean, a good-paying one!"

"Great," Dipper said. "What?"

"I'm gonna be a TV star," she said. Then, grinning at his surprised, delighted reaction, she shrugged. "Well, I'm gonna host an Internet series, anyhow. At least for the next year. I'm supposed to start next week, and then I'll be on the road for a full twelve months."

"Doing what?" Dipper asked.

"Traveling all over the country. Everywhere except Hawaii, 'cause I can't drive there! But for a start, I'm going to drive up to Alaska and do travel shows on interesting, out-of-the-way small towns and little-known wilderness places all over the USA. One hour-long show every week for forty-nine weeks, one from every state in the continental United States."

"Wow, sounds exciting," Dipper said.

"Yeah, just me and my crew. A writer-camera operator-editor-computer person."

"All in one?" Dipper asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe. Haven't hired them yet. By the way, got an invitation to Mabel's wedding. Typical of her to have it in the Shack! I figure I can come to Gravity Falls that week, record the Oregon show, and kill two birds." She took a long, slow sip of coffee. Then, a little too casually, she asked, "How about you, Dip? Wedding bells in your future?"

He shook his head. "I don't have, uh, plans."

"Yeah," she said, nodding sympathetically, "I know. Mabel and I kept in touch, and she told me you didn't have great luck in the romance department."

"Zero luck," Dipper admitted. "How about you?"

"Nothing crucial," she said. "Sorta in between right now. Never met the right guy. Ready to go back to the Shack? I'd like to show you something."

They drove back to the Shack and Wendy returned the Jeep keys to Soos. Then she led Dipper out to the parking lot and to a remote corner. With a broad grin,

Wendy said, "There she is, my new honey. Want the grand tour?"

"Wow," Dipper said. He was looking at a cream-colored RV, over twenty feet long. "This is yours?"

"Well, for now it's the company's," Wendy said. "But I got the use of it for the next year, and then if the show does OK, they may let me buy it for cheap. I'm gonna put the miles on it, doing the video series."

She opened it up, and she and Dipper stepped inside. The compact space looked amazingly efficient: a tiny toilet with a shower and folding sink, a galley with a two-burner stove and microwave, pantry already stocked, little fridge, fold-down table, and all the way in back a bed.

"This is so cool. I'm happy for you," Dipper said.

"Get this." She sat in the driver's seat, turned on the ignition, and moved a control. Dipper heard a low-pitched hum and looked back. About a third of the RV space was moving, stretching out to the left of the driver's seat. "Slide-out. Gives more room. That's supposed to be a single bed, but it's been redone as a work station—digital editing and all that biz."

"Cool!"

"Sit down, Dipper. Wait, I'm gonna slide in the bonus space." She reversed the control, and the extension glided back. The engine purred. Not looking at him, her hands on the wheel, Wendy said, "Yeah, it's cool, but there's still a detail to work out. Gotta hire my crew. Any suggestions?"

"I don't know anybody in town now," Dipper said.

"Well, I got my eye on someone," Wendy said.

"Who?

She laughed. "You, doofus!"

"Uh—"

"Look," Wendy said softly, still not meeting his gaze, "I'm not too old for you now. And as I watched you back over the summers, I kept thinking I needed to give you another chance. Spent a lot of time thinking about you, Dipper. Did you ever think about me? About us?"

Dipper felt his face glowing red-hot, and his tongue tangled. "Um, think? You? I—I, uh. All the time!" he blurted at last. "Like twenty-four hours a day, every day. Uh, sorry. I—I didn't mean to, um—confess, because you know, um, friends—"

She turned toward him and put a finger against his lips to stop him. "I want you, Dipper. It's totally up to you. How about it, man?"

Dipper's mouth still wasn't making words very well: "Are uh, Wendy, are you asking me to—"

"To be my partner." Now she was looking at him, her eyes warm and dreamy. "Writing scripts, shooting video, editing, the computer biz—you got that all knocked, Dipper. I want you if you want the work. You won't get rich, but there's a salary and we get a good per diem for food and so on. Are you willing to go on a road trip with me?"

"For the whole year?" Dipper asked, wondering if he'd fallen asleep on the log and was dreaming. He bit his tongue. Ouch. This was all real.

For the first time Wendy's green eyes looked vulnerable, uncertain. "For a whole year. Or, really, for as long as, uh, you know. You can tell me if you don't want to—"

"I want to!" he blurted. "Oh, God, Wendy, I always—this is—but I don't have a car. I've got some money, I could buy—"

"You don't need a car," Wendy said, visibly relaxing. "We'll travel in the RV. Everywhere. Together. Get it?"

"Yes," he said. "I—thank you, Wendy, this is—I think—I think I'm happy!"

"Good for you," she said, standing. "You get up, too. Now put your arms around me. I'm happy, too. Like I said, I've been thinking about you. About us. So kiss me."

They kissed.

Then she looked him in the eye—he was as tall as she was now. Frowning a little, she said, "One thing, though. I mean, we're partners, that's settled. We'll do the contract stuff tomorrow or the next day, no big rush. I'm happy, too, but we got a problem, man."

"What?" he asked.

She whispered in his ear, "There's only one bed."

"Oh, well—uh."

She playfully nipped his ear. "We'll have to see if we can make it do."

So she drove the RV to a private spot.

They discovered that the bed would do very well.

***************

Story 2: Movies & Chill

Sometimes it's fun to rekindle customs we've grown out of....

****************

The run-up to winter of 2022 proved to be unusually cold and snowy in Gravity Falls. Climate change or whatever, for a while Dipper didn't think he and Mabel would be able to make it through the icy passes and the winding, snow-blowy roads, but somehow or other, they finally rolled through the entrance to the Valley and Mabel said, "We could've made it faster if I wa

The run-up to winter of 2022 proved to be unusually cold and snowy in Gravity Falls. Climate change or whatever, for a while Dipper didn't think he and Mabel would be able to make it through the icy passes and the winding, snow-blowy roads, but somehow or other, they finally rolled through the entrance to the Valley and Mabel said, "We could've made it faster if I was driving."

"Well, yeah," Dipper agreed, "only I wanted to get us here alive."

"Oh, if you want to get technical . . . looks like everything downtown's closed." That was true. It wasn't all that late, but the sky was low and gray and the stores showed nothing but security lights.

"What do you expect?" Dipper asked. "Past six o'clock, and more snow's coming in. If we can get up the hill to the Shack I'll be happy."

"You have your key, don't you?"

"Yes. For the fifteenth time."

"Watch it, Brobro. Little slippery there!"

"I may park at the bottom of the drive," Dipper said. "I doubt if the snowplow cleared it out, with the Shack closed for the winter."

The snowplow had not cleared the drive, and a good six inches of snow coated it, but very carefully, and sometimes backsliding, Dipper urged the car up into the driveway. "Made it! Thank God for snow tires!"

"It's a winter wonderland!" The Shack and the trees around it wore a white coat of snow. The place stood dark—Soos and his family were down in Mexico, visiting relatives—and Dipper unlocked the gift-shop door and lugged suitcases in while Mabel built a snowman.

By the time Dipper had stored the luggage, the snowman was already seven feet tall. "I'm gonna make a snow Manotaur!" Mabel announced.

"Sis, just let it go!" Dipper pleaded.

She didn't finish the sculpture, but came in some minutes later, her nose red and snow on the shoulders of her quilted jacket. "Toasty warm in here!" she said.

"Yeah, strange, there was a fire in the fireplace. I mean, it had burned down to embers, but usually Grunkle Stan wouldn't leave an unattended fire going."

"Soos, then."

"No, they've been gone since the first of the month. Who are you calling?"

"Pacifica, doy! I told her I'd check in—oh, hey, girl, it's me, Mabel! Guess what? Dipper didn't kill us, and we're in the Mystery Shack." Mabel laughed. "I'd love to, but it's way too wintry for me to—what? Really? Heck, yeah, I'd love that! OK, see you soon!"

"Pacifica's driving over here?" Dipper asked. "In this blizzard?"

"Just wait and see, ye Dipper of little faith," Mabel replied smugly. "I gotta pack for a sleepover. Sorry you're not invited. Candy's already there, and Paz is coming to give me a lift."

"I don't think you should try to drive," Dipper said. "It's already pretty dark."

"Tosh and tush," Mabel said. "I gotta move stuff from my suitcase to my backpack!"

Half an hour later, it truly was dark outside, and Dipper was debating putting his foot down about Mabel's going out when he heard the roar of an engine outside. "There she is!" Mabel yelled, dashing to the gift shop. Dipper followed.

A light glared into the window, and when he opened the door, he saw Pacifica at the wheel of what looked like a small bright-yellow pickup on treads. "She's got a Snow-Kat?" Dipper asked.

"Every girl should have one! Button up the Shack and stay warm, Brobro! I'll see you after the thaw!" Mabel went out into noticeably deeper snow, past the incomplete snowmanotaur, and yelled, "Cool ride, Paz! Can I drive?"

Dipper didn't want to see the result if Pacifica gave her permission. He closed the door and, shaking his head, started back toward the kitchen. Soos had left some food in the freezer and in the cabinets, and he was getting—

Someone pounded on the door. Dipper rolled his eyes. "Oh, great, what did she forget?" He went back to the gift shop, but when he opened the door—

"Hiya, dork!" said Wendy. She was all bundled up in a red thigh-length padded jacket and had the earflaps of her trapper's hat down over her ears. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah!" he said. "God, it's good to see you! How was college?"

"Got through in five years," she said cheerfully. "I'm working for my Dad until I can get a place with the forestry department or some biz. Pacifica gave me a ride over. How are you?"

"Got through college in four years," Dipper said with a grin. "Now I've got this degree and I'm still looking for a job. Hey, have you eaten?"

"Nope, got any food?"

"Let's see."

Not too shabby. They found some frozen steak, cans of tomatoes and beans, and spices, so Wendy whipped up a big pot of chili. "Dad and the boys are off on their annual apocalypse training," she said as the food simmered, smelling delicious. "I'm not much for sleepovers nowadays, so I thought I'd come and bum the sofa off of you for the night."

"Sure," he said.

As they ate—it was deliciously spicy for such a cold winter night—Dipper asked, "Are you, um, never mind."

"Not dating," she said. "I've had way too many short-term boyfriends, so I'm giving it a rest. You?"

He shook his head. "Nothing serious."

"How was the fire when you got here?"

"I just never met—wait, what? Fire?"

"Yeah, man! I knew how cold it was gonna be, so I stopped by and started just as small welcome fire before driving over to Pacifica's. I knew she had the Snow-Kat, and I was startin' to wonder if you guys would get stuck on the way. By the time Mabes called, I didn't want to risk driving my pickup over, so I hitched with Paz. And now here we are, and if the weatherman's right, here we're probably going to stay for two days, maybe three."

"Great," Dipper said. "Uh, that's not, not, sarcastic. I mean, it's really great!"

They were just a little awkward around each other. It had been two years since they'd seen one another in person. But soon they were joking around and reminiscing about the time when Dipper had cloned himself, the time when Robbie had tried to hypnotize Wendy, the time they had parachuted into Bill Cipher's lair—

At nine, Wendy stretched and said, "Dude, the local station's old-time horror show is coming on. Wanna watch, for old time's sake?"

"Sure!"

"How 'bout bringing down some pillows and a couple of blankets?" she asked. "This kind of cold, the fireplace doesn't cut it at keeping things comfy."

He did, and meanwhile she turned on the big flat-screen TV that Soos had bought to replace Stan's worn-out model. They improvised a nest on the floor, lots of blankets, then the pillows, then themselves, and finally two more blankets.

He chuckled. "I've heard of movies and chilling, but this is the real deal."

On the screen, the weather lady was saying dire things: "Buckle up, Gravity Falls! The low for tonight will hit the single digits, and by tomorrow an estimated two feet of snow will have fallen. Don't look for any melting tomorrow, because the high is going to be only twenty degrees. Stay inside and stay warm and safe. We want to keep all our viewers! Now stay tuned for the Friday Night Frights!

"They haven't even changed the title card," Dipper said.

"Same one I remember," Wendy agreed. "I'm cold, man. Mind if I snuggle?"

"Snuggle away," he said.

The crummy old movie began, in a kind of color—faded—as the music went into would-be eerie chords, dum DUM da DEEEE.

The title came up against a midwinter landscape of mountains and forest: The Invasion of the Abominables!

"Copyright MCMLVII?" Wendy said, reading from the screen.

"That's 1957," Dipper translated.

A somber-sounding announcer said, "This . . . is the top of the world! The Himalaya mountains! Tibet!"

"Early Tibet and early to rise," Wendy murmured.

"Here the lamas, priests who keep mysterious ancient secrets, perform rituals that they learned from their parents to keep . . . eerie beings at bay!"

"The lama's mama taught him," Dipper said.

"Who wants a llama, llama," Wendy crooned.

"Stop it!" Dipper scolded, but he was laughing.

"Man, I hope you don't mind this—"

Dipper screeched. "Your hands are like ice!"

She had slipped her palms inside his shirt, undershirt even, and against his bare skin. "Yeah, but your chest will warm them up. Who's this guy?"

On screen, a man who had to be a scientist, because he wore a white lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses, sat at a desk in what looked like the corner of a disused warehouse and picked up a ringing phone with a long spring-like cord. "Hello," he said. "This is Doctor Thornwright speaking. Yes, Operator, put him through."

A reverse shot showed another man in some kind of military uniform, sitting at what looked like the identical desk, except he was in an office setting with a window through which one could see a huge photograph of the U. S. Capitol posing as the real thing. "Thornwright!" the man said. "This is General Dismay of the U.S. Air Force, calling from my office in Washington, D.C. I know you're no longer in service, but I want you to do a great favor for your Uncle Sam!"

"Sammy needs his beard trimmed, and you have some scissors," Wendy said in an imitation of the General's voice.

"Why, sir, what could that be?" asked Doctor Thornwright.

"This is to be kept ultra extreme top secret, Thornwright. We've received reliable reports of suspicious activity in Tibet. The top of the world. The Himalayas, in fact. It seems as if . . . they have been spotted again!"

"Leopards?" Dipper answered for Thornwright. "Sir, they're always spotted!"

But the movie guy said, "Then this is the research opportunity I've been hoping for! At last I can prove my alternate theory of evolution is true. General, I'll take the assignment, with one provision!"

"What's that, son?"

"I'll need my personal assistant to come along to keep notes!"

"Right, Doctor, I keep forgetting you don't know how to read or write," Wendy said.

But the General's line was, "Sure thing, Thornwright. What's his name?"

"Her name," Thornwright corrected. "He's a she, and she's my personal research assistant, Dr. Joan Swiffle. She holds a PhD in assistantology."

"Your hands warm now?" Dipper asked Wendy.

"Getting there, man. You mind?"

"Well, you're kind of stroking my chest."

"Yeah, you got abs now. Does this bother you?"

"I wouldn't say that."

They kissed, just one peck, but then another more slowly and more intimate. They lost track of the movie for a few minutes.

A scene or two later, Doctor Swiffle, the doctor's personal assistant, was boarding an Air Force plane with her boss. Joan Swiffle was blonde with artificially arched eyebrows and very red lips, and she had two outstanding features.

"Is she wearing a bra or two ice-cream cones?" Wendy asked, now pressed close to Dipper under the blanket. "Were girls shaped different back then?"

Dipper felt a little short of breath. "I think the pointy look was sort of fashionable back then."

"Does it do anything for you, man?"

"No, I prefer a natural look."

The movie, with incredible speed, became boring. There seemed to be endless shots of snowy landscapes with something happening just on the edge of the screen, lots of stock footage of mountain climbers against snowy peaks, but no Abominables showed up in focus.

At one point, after the fourth commercial, the screen showed one of those fakey binocular views of a row of figures plodding across a snowy slope. But the highest magnification merely revealed a very blurred image of what could be a guy's face wearing a white gorilla mask.

Dipper tried to sound like a wise old Jedi: "The Snow People always march in single file to conceal their number. Which is 'one.' There's only one costume, you see."

The scientist cursed his luck. He had a state-of-the-1940s-art camera with a telephoto lens (it looked like the spool from a roll of toilet paper spray-painted black) and missed his shot because—"Film! I should have thought to bring film!"

"He should've brought like seventeen cameras!" Dipper said. "Annnd we're back to long pans over a cloudy sky and a row of snowy mountains. Same ones as before. Are you as fed up with this movie as I am?"

"Mm-hm," said Wendy. She reached for the remote and clicked them into darkness. "So blah it's not even funny." She did something involving a lot of wriggling under the covers and then rolled onto to her left side, resting her right thigh over Dipper's. "Sure is dark."

The fire in the next room leaked only a soft reddish glow through the doorway. "Sure is," Dipper said, feeling her breath warm on his cheeks. "Getting colder too."

Her hands again, gliding over his skin beneath his shirt. And then down to his waist. She tugged a little and he felt his belt loosen. "Not so cold under the blankets," she whispered.

As her hand sneaked inside the waist of his jeans and lower, he gulped. "This is great, but do you feel, uh, comfortable here in the dark?"

"I'm feeling something," she said in a husky voice, and she sure was. "I can tell you like this."

"Yeahhh," he replied. This seemed like a dream he'd had before. I don't want to wake up!

She felt so warm against him. He put an arm around her shoulders and to his surprise felt her bare back. "Yeah," she said comfortably. "Took off my shirt and stuff. Do you mind?"

He had involuntarily jerked his hand away. "No," he said, beginning to stroke her soft, smooth skin. "I don't mind at unnhhh—"

"Dipper," Wendy murmured right in his ear, "can I ask you something?"

"Uh, s-sure," Dipper said.

She reached for his wrist. "Are your hands . . . cold?" she whispered.

"A, uh, a little."

"I was hoping they were. Put 'em on these. Yeah, nice. Let's warm 'em up."

The movie, forget it.

Chilling, now, chilling was much more entertaining.

******************

Story 3: Friends to Lovers

“I hate it when guys fight!”

******************

When Dipper returned to the Mystery Shack in June, 2022, the first person he looked for was Wendy. He was disappointed.

"She's takin' some time off, dude," Soos explained. "Like a mental health day. She's had honkin' big problems."

"She never said anything to me," Dipper said, worrying. They still texted two or three times every week, had phone conversations at least once a month. "What's the problem?"

Soos looked apologetic. "Um, she, like keeps that secret, Dip. I'm not sure, but I think it's some b-o-y-f-r-i-e-n-d problem."

"That spells "boyfriend," said Soos's seven-year old daughter.

That made even a concerned Dipper smile. "Next time, Soos, spell it 'aneqhdmc.'"

"That's no good," the seven-year-old said without even looking up from the game she was playing on her tablet. "Just a minus-one Caesar cipher. Too easy."'

"She's even smarter than I am," Soos confided.

Mabel had checked in at the Shack as soon as they rolled in at sunrise that morning and then had taken off immediately because Marius and Grenda were in town and had invited her out for a day of royal dining and entertainment outside the Valley. She had borrowed Dipper's car, so in turn Dipper borrowed Soos's Jeep. "I'm going to run over to Wendy's house and see if she's OK," he told Soos.

"Tell her that her job is safe!" Soos said. "Also warn her to check inside her boots before she puts 'em on in the morning. Scorpions, dude!"

The drive to the Corduroy house was only about five miles, but it took Dipper longer than it would have had he been used to driving a straight-shift vehicle. He got the gear-grinding down to a minimum, though, and at a little after nine he turned off the road and onto the winding drive that led downhill to Wendy's home.

Dan's pickup wasn't parked there. Wendy's car, a ten-year-old Hideo Traxxer, stood in front of the house, but—Dipper saw as he got out of the Jeep—it had been in a wreck. Or something. The windshield was broken out, clumps of laminated glass fragments gleaming across the hood like spilled diamonds under a cloudy sky, and both headlights had been shattered, too. The hood itself held a half-dozen deep, concave dents as if a blacksmith had been working it over with a sledgehammer.

Dipper hurried to the front door and knocked.

"Go away!" Wendy yelled from inside, sounding angry.

"Wendy! Open the door!"

"Smoke, I don't want to talk to you! Go away!" Furious, no doubt about it. Wendy was yelling so loud her voice broke.

A little louder himself this time, Dipper yelled, "It's me, Dipper. There's nobody else out here."

The door opened then, just a crack, and one green eye peered out at him. "Dipper! I didn't think you'd be back in town until tomorrow," Wendy said, at first excited. But she went back to frustration and barely-controlled rage. "Go back to the Mystery Shack, and tell Soos I'll come in to work tomorrow morning."

"Wait, Wendy, please let me in," Dipper said. "Something's wrong. You can tell me about it. We're friends, remember?"

For a long few seconds, Wendy hesitated. Finally, with a sigh, she stepped back and opened the door. "Come on in. Excuse the mess."

He stepped in, blinking. She wasn't wrong. The place was a mess—but a closer look told him that most of the clutter comprised Wendy's clothes, jeans and shirts and bras and underwear, scattered all over the floor and furniture, many of them torn. A lamp had been knocked off a table and lay with its shade all crumpled on one side. The TV screen had been cracked. The coffee table was lying with four legs in the air, like roadkill furniture. "What happened?" Dipper asked.

"Smoke Krissell happened," she said wearily. Carefully, Wendy locked, dead-bolted, and chained the front door. She brushed her hair back out of her eyes. "His real name's Stewart, but everybody calls him Smoke. Used to play high-school football. We've had one date, and it wasn't fun. Soon as Dad left for work this morning Smoke came to the door and wanted to take me out right then and I said no, I had to work, and he got out of hand."

"Do you have a black eye?" Dipper asked, peering at her.

She touched her left cheek. "Do I? Maybe. Smoke slapped me pretty hard. He's got two shiners himself, though. I chased him off."

"Wait, who is this guy?"

She sighed. "Help me pick up this stuff and tidy the house, much as we can. I'll need to wash my clothes and maybe mend what I can and toss the rest. I got a basket here somewhere."

Two of Wendy's shirts were ripped in half, good for nothing but cleaning rags now. Her jeans were all in one piece. At least four pairs of her underwear had been shredded—"Did he use a knife?" Dipper asked.

"Don't think so, just his hands and teeth. After I turned him down, I was just standing in the doorway, waiting until he finished screamin' at me and callin' me names to tell him off. He got real mad 'cause I wouldn't flinch or say anything and slapped me so hard he made me fall on my butt, and he bulled inside the house and tried to grab me, but I got away and wouldn't let him touch me. I had my laundry in the basket, 'cause I was taking it to the washing machine, and he grabbed the basket off the floor and spilled everything out and started to rip stuff up. I tried to pull it away from him, and he popped me another one that made me see stars and fall to my knees, so I got up, shook it off, and beat his ass and kicked him out."

"Did he vandalize your car?"

Wendy sighed and nodded. "Yeah, while I was runnin' to the back porch to grab an axe. I got back to the front door just in time to see him drive off. Dammit, it's gonna cost a bundle to fix the Traxxer."

They rounded up all the undamaged clothing and righted the coffee table and lamp. The TV buzzed, but no picture appeared, so she shut it off. Wendy settled onto the sofa with a groan. "My eye swollen?" She switched on the lamp, popped the shade into roughly the right shape, and turned toward him.

Dipper leaned close. "A little. Want an ice pack?"

"That would be sweet," Wendy said. "You know where the fridge is."

Dipper went to the kitchen, popped out a half-dozen ice cubes, put them in a plastic bag and wrapped that with a face cloth. Then something from the living room sounded like an explosion. A muffled, furious male voice bellowed, "Who the hell you got in there with you, slut? Who's Jeep is this? I'll kill him!"

"Go away, Smoke!" Wendy yelled.

Dipper hurried back to her and handed her the ice bag.

Somebody kicked the door, hard.

"Oh, hell, he's gonna bust in," Wendy said, starting to rise.

With a splintering crash, the latch plate broke free, the chain ripped the holder out of the frame, and the door banged all the way open, and a burly skinhead guy in a black tee-shirt and jeans charged in, glaring through two purpling, bloodshot eyes. "Get away from my girl, runt!" he yelled. When he shook his fist, Dipper saw he wore what Grunkle Stan called knuckle dusters.

"Lay off, Smoke! He's not my boyfriend!" Wendy said, pushing past Dipper.

"I'm gonna trash him and then teach you a lesson, bitch!" he shouted, spit flying.

"He's just a friend! And I don't want to see you anymore, Smoke! Get out of my house!" She shoved his chest.

He slapped her so hard she spun and fell face-forward.

Later Dipper couldn't even remember the next few minutes.

Wendy, while they waited for the ambulance, told him, "I never saw anything like it, Dip. I mean, you know those cartoons where the Tasmanian Devil turns into like a whirlwind of claws and teeth? That was you, man. You plowed right into old Smokey and drove him out on the porch. He landed a good one on you, but, man, you didn't even pause, kicked him in the groin and doubled him over, then got his face hard with your knee—that's where the blood on your jeans came from, his nose—he falls backward off the porch, hard, knocks the wind out of him, and next thing I know, he's laying on his back, arms spread out, and you're sitting on his chest and just pounding left and right and yelling, 'She's-my-friend-you-BASTARD!' When I pulled you off, he was like out of it." She tilted her head. "I hear the sirens."

The EMT guys said it looked like Krissell was just unconscious, maybe a mild concussion. Blubs and Durland showed up and took statements from Wendy and Dipper and got video from the security camera Manly Dan had installed a year or so earlier. The recordings showed Krissell on both visits, and even included his pounding on Wendy's car with a breadloaf-sized rock.

Durland went back to the patrol car, radioed somebody, and returned with the news, "Checked on his ID. There's warrants out on him for assaultin' a policeman in Portland, domestic abuse of a girlfriend in Seattle, and another one from Washington State for armed robbery. Maybe another one from South Carolina, but they want prints to be sure."

"Take him into custody," Blubs said. "Cuff him."

"Do you want me to read him his rights?"

"Not until he's booked." Blubs glanced over. "And conscious."

One of the EMTs, a no-nonsense woman who reminded Dipper a little bit of Grenda, checked him and Wendy out. Wendy was OK except for bruising. Next the medic probed Dipper's face—"Does that hurt? Do you feel anything grating?" She made him focus his eyes on the bridge of her nose and follow her moving finger side to side. Then she looked at his hands. "Pretty swollen knuckles. Next time, don't punch anything bony so hard. Go for the gut. Make fists. Tighter. Open. Anything catching? Doesn't look like any bones are broken."

While her partner was injecting Krissell, who was beginning to stir and mutter incoherent curses, the EMT finished and said Wendy and Dipper weren't hurt bad enough for treatment and told them to rest, use ice on their bruises, and take ibuprofen for pain.

As the two EMTs loaded Krissell, who was fading again after the injection, into the ambulance, Blubs pushed his hat back. "Looks like he's gonna spend some hospital time before we book him!"

Then he explained to Wendy and Dipper that they wouldn't have to face charges. They had studied the damage he'd done to her car and the house and had already watched Krissell kick in the door and assault Wendy on the video. "In Oregon, what you did to him counts as self-defense," he said. "But later on the prosecutor's gonna want your statements unless this guy pleads out."

Durland would ride along in the ambulance to guard Krissell, now sedated as well as manacled and handcuffed, as the EMTs drove to the hospital. "What'll I do if he comes to and gets violent?" the deputy asked.

Before closing the rear doors, the tough woman EMT said, "Hit him on the head with your flashlight. We wouldn't notice."

The ambulance drove away. Dipper used Wendy's computer to copy the security video and put it on a usb drive for the sheriff. Then Blubs left in the patrol car.

Dipper and Wendy trudged back to the house.

"Damn dirtbag," Wendy said. "Little help, Dipper? We're gonna have to fix this door, dude, before my dad gets home. And anyways, he's going to tear into me about all this damage. I'll have to buy him a new TV set, I guess. He didn't like it that one time I went out with Smoke. I told Smoke that was it, that one date was all. He was so mean and nasty, and he kept touching me until I couldn't stand it. Slapped me and I kneed him where it hurts. That was two days ago. Then this morning he comes around with this crap. Jeeze, I give up on guys!"

They broke out the tools and—mostly Wendy, Dipper's carpentry skills were limited—got the front door properly re-hung, the latch plate replaced and reinforced, and by then it was lunchtime.

"Want to go out for something to eat?" Dipper asked as they sat on the sofa. "I'll drive"

"Your jaw feel all right?" she asked. "No loose teeth?"

He probed with his tongue. No loose teeth. But the whole side of his face was swollen and—ouch!—tender when he touched it. He told her he didn't think anything was broken.

"Your nose is a little bloody," she said.

Dipper took out his handkerchief and dabbed, but the little brownish-red spot of blood was almost dry. He caught Wendy gazing at him with a half-fond, half-amused expression. "What?"

Seriously, she looked into his eyes and asked, "You know what you have to do now, Dipper?"

Alarmed, he asked, "What?"

She made a pistol with her fingers and gave her voice a rasp: "Ya gotta whack Sollozzo and McCluskey, bada-bing!"

"Always The Godfather," Dipper lamented. "Why is it always The Godfather? 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli. Make 'em an offer they can't refuse."

Wendy said quietly, "Hey, Mikey, tell that nice girl you love her."

Dipper winced. "Ouch." It hurt to grin.

"Man, seriously, what is wrong with guys?" Wendy asked, sprawling back on the sofa. "Or is it me? I just have such rotten luck. Every time I think, I could really get to love this one, he immediately turns into a jerk and lets me down. I'm like the world's worst judge of guy's characters. Made up my mind. I'm gonna be a spinster, dude! No more boyfriends for me!"

"What about just a very good friend?" Dipper asked.

She glanced at him with affection. "Well, I dunno. I guess. Yeah, we've been friends a long time. I like you and all, but then you turned into a wildcat or some biz. You know I hate it when guys fight over me!"

"I wasn't fighting what's-his-name, Krissell, over you," Dipper corrected quietly. "I was fighting him because he hurt you." He took a deep breath. "I'd do it again."

Wendy touched his hair on his forehead. "Got a small lump there, too. Well—I gotta admit when you had him down, I came and got a couple of kicks in. The slimeball. Do me a favor and stay with me until Dad comes home and be my witness that it was Smoke who busted up my car and the TV and ruined like half of my clothes?"

"Sure," he told her. "I mean, he could just watch the video—

"Nah, you know Dad. He'd blow his cool before I could get him to sit down and look at it. But if you tell him the story, he'll believe you. Will you do that for me?

"You know I will," he said. "That's what a friend would do."

She didn't want anything to eat, but she did want to talk. She had a small bottle of Motrin, and they each took one. Then as they popped a couple of Pitt's and as they sipped them, for the first time, ever, really, she talked and talked to him about herself. He learned about her rocky love life, every single guy she'd ever seriously dated turning sour on her. In the afternoon, both achy, they sat side by side on the sofa—they'd forgotten about lunch—and she wept silently. "Guys are so rotten. Why couldn't at least one of them," she asked, "be like you?"

The silence stretched out until he said gently, "I'm like me."

Now her face, her freckled cheeks still wet with tears, broke into her lop-sided grin. "Yeah, man, you are, but—I dunno. You and me? You think? I'm too old for you."

"No, you're not," he said, brushing her bruised cheek with a soft touch of his fingers. "You're perfect for me. And I can't lie and tell you that if we get together I'd make our lives a bed of roses or whatever. I've got my college diploma, but no job yet. And I don't have much to offer you. Except—" he took a deep breath. "My friend, I love you. I mean, I'm not just in love with you, I truly love you and always have and always will. There. I've said it for the first time in, what, ten years? Wendy, all I can promise is that no matter what, I'll always love you and I'll never once hurt you or treat you bad, and . . . I'll just go on loving you."

"You're my best friend," she said, running her fingers through his hair, smiling at his Big Dipper birthmark. "A step like that, my kind of luck, it might totally wreck our friendship. But I gotta admit, you're getting that hunky Pines build. And I have a better time goofing with you and Mabel than I've ever had with any of my so-called boyfriends. I'm tempted."

Dipper got off the sofa and dropped to one knee. "Wendy—"

She giggled. "No, no, dude, please don't put me on the spot, not yet. Don't ask me to be your wife."

He dropped his chin and looked at the floor for a few seconds. Then he raised his eyes to meet her gaze. Softly, he asked, "Wendy Corduroy, will you be my lover?"

She gasped, her lips parted, her eyes wide with surprise. Then she got that sleepy look back in them. She leaned forward so her lips were close to his. "I think maybe—yes. And then, if we're OK together," she whispered, "I mean, after we're really sure, will you be my husband?"

Weeks later, Mabel was to call it the world's craziest proposal.

Maybe so, man. Maybe it was.

Like they say, whatever works, works.

And in this case—it worked like a charm.

**************

Story 4: Will You?

 Odd how two people can clash off each other, and then one day, boom.

****************

In the Falls, Dipper loved Wendy a lot,

But alas, at those times Wendy did not.

And other times Wendy wanted Dipper to hold,

But at those times, Dipper's feelings ran cold.

*****************

It wasn't the Grinch who fouled up things between Wendy and Dipper, it was sheer bad timing. They were always friends, but friends sometimes quarrel. And the times that Dipper was hopelessly, truly, deeply smitten, Wendy was distracted and just wouldn't be smote. And when Wendy was feeling warmly romantic, fear of having his feelings hurt had made Dipper retreat into his shell and he just wouldn't respond. They usually wound up a summer avoiding each other.

Then the next summer, when Dipper came back to Gravity Falls nursing his bruised feelings, Wendy would see him and sympathize and try to say, "It's OK, dude, I'm ready now."

Dipper being Dipper, he couldn't bring himself to trust her, or more precisely, her feelings. It's awful when you like someone a whole lot but fear they're going to hurt you again, so he'd say "Let's just be friends," and then Wendy would feel like crap, wonder what she had done wrong or what he was misinterpreting, and the next year he was back to loving her and she was all, "No, you're right, we're friends."

Ten years. Well, ten years that summer. Mabel was now a respectable married lady, had been for a month, and was three months pregnant. Yes, the man she married was a stand-up guy, and no, he wasn't a pile of Gnomes. He was quite a big name on the Interwebs, having established a profitable social-media site for teens. She was a clothing designer and consultant, and she could keep doing that until the baby decided to come.

Anyway, Mabel arrived in Gravity Falls for just a short visit in June 2022. Dipper was there for the whole summer, finishing up some investigations for Grunkle Ford, who was older and didn't travel as much as he used to, though he was now publishing best-selling popular books on the paranormal. Ford lived in Piedmont, near the Pines's home. Dipper had, after leaving college, become his Grunkle's ghostwriter (mainly changing Ford's stiff scientific prose into vivid prose) as well as Ford's chief researcher and leg-man.

No, that's not what it means. Of course Dipper liked boobs! Well, yes, he liked Wendy's legs, too, but—I did not say "butt!" It's a noun, not a conjunction! Listen, a leg-man is an employee who goes and does stuff for their more sedentary employer. A private eye's leg-man will interview witnesses, look up documents, stuff like that, freeing the Chief up to use the old brain, confront the villain, and have the hot romances. Not that the popular-science books Ford wrote were that kind of literature.

Anyway Dipper took photos of sap-embalmed dinosaurs, went snorkeling with the real Gobblewonker, recorded Gnome folklore, and other such chores.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, at Mabel's wedding and after, Dipper had lamented that he'd probably never get married himself, because the previous summer Wendy had still been on her friends kick, and now even though he'd be in the Falls all summer, he was planning on being cold and distant so Wendy wouldn't break his heart.

"The path of true love is like a rotten, rutted, washed-out road when the two people driving on it are both knuckleheads." That's William Shakespeare. No, wait, it's Grunkle Stan. He was still living in Gravity Falls, though he was retired, and when Mabel came to him and suggested that it would be nice if Dipper and Wendy could somehow get together, Stan said, "I guess somebody oughta pave over the broken pavements of life and smooth 'em out. OK, I want in on this."

Mabel went to visit Wendy, now working as the office manager for Corduroy Lumber and Timber, LLC. She caught the redhead just as she was getting off work on Friday afternoon.

"Mabel!" Wendy said, grinning.

"Wendy! Don't hug too hard, I'm pregnant!"

"Whoa! Dude! You gotta tell me all about this! Wait, already? You just got married like four weeks ago!"

"Yeah, Mike thought we ought to. Hey, we got a house, and we're gonna put in a nursery, and—I don't want to stand here on the sidewalk. Could we have dinner together or something?"

They went to the Big Swallow, a new-ish restaurant overlooking the lake, and dined on the patio. "I miss this town so much when I'm away," Mabel said. "So how's the job working out?"

Wendy shrugged. "Meh. It'll do for a while. Not gonna be my career, though. At least I'm making enough to have my own place. One of the tourist cabins Dad built. He lets me rent it real cheap."

"You know, Dipper's back in town," Mabel said casually.

"Good," Wendy said in a neutral tone. "Um—how is he?"

"He's good, he's good," Mabel said. "He's investigating some paranormal junk for Grunkle Ford. They're partners now, writing true pop-science stories about the paranormal, and the books are getting a big audience. Dipper's earning pretty decent money. It's all good."

"Tell him I'm glad he's good," Wendy said, sipping from her wine glass.

Mabel sipped her water. No wine for her! At least not for the next six or seven months. "Yeah, well, the thing about it, is Dipper's not good. He's terrible! Wendy, he's so lonely!"

Wendy shrugged. "I'm sorry about that. I mean, we just never connected, but I wish him well."

"You could help him," Mabel said.

"How?" asked Wendy, smiling, but suspiciously.

"Give him hope," Mabel said.

With a sigh, Wendy said, "I've tried over and over. Mabes, he's told me and told me we're just friends, that's all."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but you know Dipper. You can't believe him when he talks about emotions and all. Because he has them but can't understand them!"

Wendy ordered a second glass of white wine, a rarity for her. "I know. But when I'm feeling, you know, romantic about him, I worry that he's gonna brush me off because he's all on eggshells and doesn't want to force me to say something I don't mean or—I don't know."

"He'll come to see you," Mabel said. "You know he will. He can't stay away from you. Do me a big, big favor? When he comes, just say, 'I'm willing to give us a try as a couple. Will you agree?'"

"And he'll say, 'We said we'd just be friends, and I think we ought to stay with that," Wendy replied in a resigned voice. "And I'll get flustered and he'll get mad—we like each other a whole lot, Mabel, but I'm not sure that we'll ever, you know, connect with each other. Love each other." She sighed.

"I've got a reason to ask you," Mabel said.

"What's that?"

"I want my baby to have an aunt."

And at about the same time, Grunkle Stan was having a heart-to-heart with Dipper. "Kid, face it. You know you're in love with Wendy. She knows it. Everybody knows it. Give us all a break. Take her away from all this."

"All what?" Dipper asked. They were eating in Greasy's Diner, and the food wasn't nearly as good as the chateaubriand and chicken cordon bleu that Mabel and Wendy were having. "I mean, I love Gravity Falls! If I could do it, I'd move here full-time. I wouldn't be taking her away from anything."

"Yeah, you would. She don't like workin' for her dad. Fact is, she's miserable! Even miserabler than she was that first summer when she was clerking at the Shack. Look, you got a job with Ford, he sends you all over the place to investigate ghosts and ape men and crip-toed animals. Wendy'd love to travel! And she's an ace photographer and she could do all the illustrations! Ford's got plenty of dough. He'd hire her like that!" He snapped his fingers so loud that all the other diners and the whole staff jerked their heads around to look at him. He grinned and waved. "Still got it!"

Dipper sighed. "Grunkle Stan, I've tried to tell Wendy that I love her. I've even tried to propose. She always cuts me short. Then sometimes she feels sorry for me and says she loves me, but I know she's doing it out of pity—"

"Pity, schmitty," Stan said. "I'm tellin' you, you two could make it work. You gotta just do two things."

"What?" Dipper asked.

"One, trust her. You can. I know you can. Hell, you and her have stood side by side more'n once to face down some spookum! I remember this one time she jumped on a freakin' flyin' eyebat and flew it so it froze one of Bill Cipher's henchmen or henchthing or whatever it was. And I saw your face when she reached for your hand when you guys were standin' on Ford's stupid Zodiac! She says she loves you, trust her!"

"What's the second thing?" Dipper asked.

Stan leaned forward. "It's even more important, Dipper. Trust yourself! Trust your feelings! That fuckin' Journal ruined you, Dipper. 'Trust no one,' Ford wrote. That, that sentence, that's what you shouldn't trust, 'cause it ain't true. You can trust her if you trust you, and then you can, uh, trust each other, and—heck, just tell her you love her and say you'll give it a try and ask her if she's willing, too. I'll bet she will be. When nothing else works, fall back on the truth—"

"Aaggh!" Dipper yelled, flailing his arms.

"What? What is it?" an alarmed Stan asked.

"A possum just jumped on the table and stole my hamburger!"

"Yeah," Stan said. "They'll do that."

Dipper knew where Wendy was renting a small house, and on Sunday afternoon he showed up there, walked nearly to her door, turned around on the front step, hesitated, and walked away, paused on the sidewalk, turned again—

Wendy opened her front door. "Oh!" she said. "Hey, dude! Heard you were in town."

Dipper coughed. "Yeah, no, I mean, you're going out, I'll try to see you before I have to leave—"

Wendy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Dipper! Relax, man. I wasn't going anywhere. I just saw you through the front window. Come on inside. Have a Pitt's or something. Catch me up."

Dipper faked a smile and walked back to her front door, not as fast as his heart was beating time, boom-da-ba-boom, and she stepped back, holding the door open for him. "You're looking really good," he heard himself say.

"Eh, I could lose five pounds. You look like you've been working out yourself, Dip. Nice day. Let's go on the back porch and sit. Quiet back there." She paused in the kitchen, her hand on the fridge door. "Mind if I have a beer?"

"I'll take one too," Dipper said. Why did I say that?

Wendy's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really? Rimrock OK?"

"Fine, yes, Rimrock. Beer. OK."

She handed him a cold golden can, and they went through a sliding-glass door onto what she called a porch, though it really was more of a deck with an awning. They sat side by side in two patio chairs. The well-kept yard was fenced in, and beyond the fence he saw the woods and beyond them, the bluffs. She popped her beer. He popped his. "So you're drinking beer now," she said, sounding amused.

"Now and then," he said. To prove it he took a swig. It was true, he drank beer now and then. A total of, let's see, last New Year's Eve, then at Ford's barbecue in March when Fiddleford had come to visit, and, um. One other time that he couldn't remember. So this was his . . . fourth beer. He turned an impulsive "yuck" into an "ahh."

"You don't have to chug it, man," Wendy said. "I have more in the fridge."

Dipper coughed. "I didn't mean to—" he paused and sighed. "Wendy. OK, I promised myself I would ask. Um. If you say no, it's OK, and I won't ever ask again. I probably won't ever even see you again—"

"What are you asking me?" Wendy said patiently.

"Can I come and see you now and then?"

She actually laughed. "You're doing that now, dude! Any time, sure. That's not what you meant to ask, is it? Come on, what is it really?"

He sat for a moment, hearing woodpeckers busy with their carpentry somewhere in the woods. He took another small sip of beer. "OK," he said. "Here it is. I'd like to try being more than just friends with you. I—" he closed his eyes. "I love you. I'd like to be your boyfriend. Or more. Will you?"

"Dunno," she said, musing. "Don't look so upset! I haven't said no. I think I could love you, Dipper. Heck, I know I could. There are times when we're chasing monsters or fighting ghosts that we're really, really good for each other. But in just normal life, can we get along, you think? I mean, I can be moody and you can be insecure."

"Yeah," he admitted. "But, listen, I'm working for Grunkle Ford, and you and I can do investigations together. I travel all over the place for him, Twin Peaks, Eerie, Indiana, investigating ghosts and even stranger things. We could do that together, like we used to do every summer in Gravity Falls. And even when there's a lull and life is ordinary, I'll make allowances for you if you can do the same for me. Will you?"

"Dipper," Wendy said softly, "Listen up. I mainly don't want you to be a pushover, man. Lot of the times when I'm upset or angry or whatever, I get unreasonable. I know I do. And I don't want you just to lay back and take any crap—"

"Don't say any more," Dipper told her.

She blinked. "You trying to prove something?"

"No. You're just telling me stuff I already know. And it doesn't matter. You could—could take a swing at me, or cuss me out, or kick me out of the house, and I'd still feel the same way about you. But I'll try to deal with you when you have an off day if you'll try to do the same with me, when I'm all suspicious and worried."

"Will you?" Wendy asked.

He looked her in the eye. "You bet your ass."

Wendy set her beer down on the deck and stood right in front of him. She looked down on him with those wonderful, sleepy green eyes. "Stand up," she said.

He did, and they were face to face. She gently took the beer from him and set it down beside hers. "I think that might be too strong for you, man. All right. I've always liked your moxie. Let's try it, then," she said. She put her arms around him and gazed into his eyes. "Boyfriend."

He felt hot and cold and scared and elated. "Let's do it. Girlfriend," he managed.

She pulled him close. "You're just the right size for me now," she said, looking him straight in the eye. She moved her face closer, and he kissed her.

She pulled back, smiling. "Aw, dude. You haven't had much practice at this, have you?"

"Well, yeah, I—" Dipper stopped, feeling as sheepish as when he did the damn lamby dance. "No, I haven't," he admitted, falling back on the truth. "Romantically speaking, high school and college were both a bust for me. I haven't really, seriously kissed more girls than, um—well, more than you."

"It's OK," she said softly. "You get better as you practice it. Let's go inside, man."

They did, both carrying their beers, which they set down unfinished on the counter. she closed the glass door and locked it. "Bedroom's the first door on the left," Wendy said in a husky voice. "Will you come with me?"

"What are, uh, we gonna do?" Dipper asked.

"Practice," she said.

****************

Story 5: Babysitting

Thank heaven for little extradimensional eldritch horrors....

****************

Wendy was off on a photography shoot for Pacific Coast Nature when Dipper got an unexpected call from Grunkle Ford: "Mason, I hate to ask you, but I must have backup immediately! Stan's in Vegas, and Fiddleford's too old—it's an anomaly hunt. Possibly dangerous, probably not lethal. I think. Are you willing to go with me and watch my back?"

Dipper looked into the living room, where the twins were building something elaborate out of a set of intricately shaped wood blocks that their grandfather Dan had carved especially for them out of six different varieties of hardwood. "Let me make an arrangement and I'll be there as soon as possible," he said.

"Please hurry. Something is coming through from the monster dimensions!"

Dipper phoned Mabel. "Can I drop the kids off?" he asked. "Wendy's out of town, and Ford needs help."

"Uh, sure, Brobro," Mabel said. "But Sandi's teething, so—"

"That's OK," he said. "Danny and Gwen will play with each other. Be there in ten minutes."

Life is strange. Six years after the Mystery Twins had left Gravity Falls for high school and later college, Dipper and Wendy, then newlyweds, had returned to the weird little town to settle there. Mabel came back a few months later, because her boyfriend, who was now her husband, worked in the Falls, having replaced Blubs as sheriff when he and Durland retired and moved to Florida. It was a win-win, she figured. Sandi would love playing with the Gnomes and her hubby would have probably the least dangerous police assignment in the Northwest. Plus he was smarter than Blubs and ten times smarter than Durland, but then so was moss.

Dipper and Wendy lived up the road a half mile from the Shack, still run by Soos and Melody and their brood, and Mabel lived about the same distance down the road from it. Dipper pulled up and the three-year-old twins came with him to the house, Danny cheering, "Yay! Aunt Mabel!" and Gwen protesting, "No! My Aunt Mabel! Mine!"

Mabel opened the door. "There you are, my beautiful knuckleheads!" she said. "Come on in! I have juice and cookies!"

"Uh, not yet," Dipper warned. "They just had breakfast. Maybe a snack later, but not too much sugar."

Mabel slapped down the very idea with a dismissive gesture. "Oh, Broseph, no worries. You know my iron self-control! Come on in, kids!"

"Yeah . . . right. Well, thanks, Sis."

"You be careful, Dip."

***

Though Grunkle Stan was out of the Shack and on his own, living downtown in an apartment, Ford had turned his underground laboratory into a combination research center and home. Waving at Melody, Dipper pressed through the early crowd coming out of and going into the gift shop and ducked into the Employees Only part of the Shack. Because Ford realized that repeatedly seeing someone open a secret passage behind a vending machine just might make a stranger suspicious, he had rearranged things a bit. Now a closet to the left of the lockers, marked "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE / ELECTRICITY" and locked with a facial-recognition security unit scanned him and then silently opened to reveal an inner door to the extended elevator, and a narrow side door that opened to the emergency ladder, roughly where the stair used to be..

Ford met the elevator on the top level of the lab, aiming a quantum destabilizer at Dipper. "Good, it's you!" he said, lowering the weapon. "Or is it? Quick tell me how to pacify the Gremloblin!"

"Give him a singing fish!" Dipper said. "Grunkle Ford, is there a monster loose in the basement or something?"

"Something's here, all right," Ford said. He looked much the same as he had ten years before, except his hair now was mostly white and he had undergone laser surgery and no longer wore glasses. "I somehow can't get a fix on it. I think it's currently on the bottom level, but in order to capture or neutralize it, I need a wingman! Wait a minute and I'll arm you."

To Dipper's surprise, Ford handed him a rifle-style quantum destabilizer. "It's set to narrow beam, lowest setting," he said. "Even so, be careful. A shot in the wrong place could bring the whole Shack down on us!"

***

Meanwhile, and some miles away from Gravity Falls, Wendy stood on a temporarily non-flooded beach and took beautiful photos of Hug Point, specifically of an inlet that allowed a waterfall to tumble straight onto the beach, like a replica in miniature of some Hawaiian spots. The weather was good that morning with just a few puffy small clouds, and she squatted for one angle, stood tall for another, shifted position for another, and captured at least a dozen great shots. Her assistant said, "Mrs. Corduroy-Pines, the tide's just turned."

"Six more and let's get out of here," Wendy said. If they lingered much longer, a rising tide would catch them between ocean and a bluff, and they'd have to clamber over water-slick rocks and then push through tangles of thorny growth and over slippery, mossy boulders to get back to the van. She snapped the last few pics, then turned and got some photos of breaking surf—each wave coming a bit closer—before she joined Grace and they briskly hiked down the beach until they hit the spot where they'd come in via a narrow, crooked footpath that led to a parking spot. "Tired?" Wendy asked as Grace unlocked the car.

"Getting tired," Grace said. "How far did we walk?"

"Couple miles each way. Don't know about you, but coffee's not lasting me. We need some food. Let's find a place to get brunch and then what's next on the list?

"Um." Grace consulted her phone for the list. "Nehalem State Park."

Wendy corrected her pronunciation: "Neh-HAY-lem, not KNEE-hah-lem. Cool! That's only like half an hour away, and I know a bakery and café there where we can eat. Can you wait that long?"

"Sure." Grace said. She unlocked the van and Wendy stored her cameras before climbing into the passenger seat.

"Two more long days of this," Wendy said. "Be good to get back home."

Grace drove south and they chatted, but after about ten minutes Wendy's phone chimed. She glanced at the screen and answered it: "Hi, Mabes. What's up?"

"Um, I'm kinda stuck here," Mabel said. "The twins want a snack, but I don't know what you and Dip let them have, and I can't get him on the phone."

"Why are you babysitting?" Wendy asked, sitting up straighter in the passenger seat.

"Dipper has some emergency deal with Grunkle Ford, I don't know what, and I love having them over, but, you know, they're saying they're hungry."

"They're always hungry," Wendy said. "OK, let me see, what would you have handy? Yogurt?"

"Uh, yeah, banana flavored. Is that OK?"

"Perfect!" Wendy said. "Give both of them about three ounces of that and maybe, um, two small graham crackers? Like snap a regular one in half for each of them?"

"Got those!" Mabel said. "Thanks. I'll go take care of this right now!"

As soon as she hung up, Wendy tried Dipper's number. It went straight to the voicemail message. So she tried Ford's. No luck.

But when she dialed the Shack number, Soos answered: "The Mystery Shack, where the dreams are real! Come and visit us! This is Mr. Mystery speaking, how can I help you?"

"Soos," Wendy said—

"Wendy?"

"Yes, right. Listen, are Stanford and Dipper over there?"

Soos lowered his voice: "They're like down in the secret L-A-B, up to something mysterious and all. I can go see if they're busy."

"Um, don't bother them. But soon as you see them, let Dipper know to call me."

"I will, dude! That's like a Soos promise."

"Thanks, man."

The drive south was scenic, the brunch tasty. Still, Wendy couldn't shake a feeling of foreboding.

***

"What is that thing?" asked Dipper.

"It's either an eldritch horror or a cryptid monstrosity," Ford replied, sweat beading on his forehead. "Still behaving in the same maddening way. Since the moment I spotted the thing, it keeps phasing in and out of reality! It's impossible to get a good bead on it!"

Whatever it was, the . . . apparition, the thing, appeared momentarily as either an eyeless, slimy, pulsating, purple-and-pink blobby thing with short spiked-tipped tentacles, or a twelve-legged crab-like scuttling blood-red crustacean-like creature with abut nine eyes on stalks, or a lurching, glurching monstrosity that looked like a zombie's torso, except the distorted, crumbling face was on the chest and it had no head. And less describable shapes in between. It didn't speak, but made strangely faint, strangled, gurgling sounds and sometimes seemed to chuckle at them.

"It's like the Shapeshifter," Dipper said. He'd given up on trying to shoot it with the destabilizer rifle. From the way it flickered, both in his vision and on Ford's anomaly-detector screen, he was sure that if he fired, the thing wouldn't be there by the time the beam actually ignited.

Ford was shaking his head. "The somatic pattern does not match the Shapeshifter's. It's something else, from somewhere else, and I suppose we really should fire if it ever manifests completely. One thing gives me pause. So far, it seems to have made no hostile moves. I hesitate to make a first strike when it hasn't attacked or even made a threat display."

"It is a threat display," Dipper said.

"If only it would retain its grip on our dimension—there it is again!"

This time it looked like a snake with three heads threaded through a six-legged turtle's body. It scampered for a foot and a half and vanished.

"You're absolutely sure it isn't the Shapeshifter?" Dipper asked.

"Not the same morphic signature at all," Ford said. "And I checked the surveillance feed from the bunker, and the cryonic chamber is stable and secure."

Dang, the thing, now something like the melancholy offspring of a turkey and a lobster, flickered into view and immediately faded.

Dipper gripped his weapon without attempting to sight in on where the thing had been. "Have you ever come across something that sort of phases in and out?"

After a few moments, Ford replied, "Well, actually I recall that when I was lost in the Multiverse, I once had a brief fit of dimension-flicker. It was at a time when I made a narrow escape from a dangerous situation by diving into a natural portal, and I seemed to be on the edge of two realities. One was a swamp, the other a desert, and bizarre creatures yammered at the sight of me in each one. I went back and forth for quite a long time before I was able to hold onto one of the dimensions long enough to get away from the instabilities. Unfortunately the desert rats were hostile, and I had to find a way out of there before—"

"It's here again!"

Now it appeared in a corner of the lab, facing away from them. It spun and they wished it hadn't. This bodily form looked like a toad formed to display a greatly outsized mouth, but when the toothy jaws opened, there was a beak behind them and when that opened there were like seventeen tongues serpent-like.

"Move left and aim for the corner!" Ford said, moving to the right.

The creature faded again, but it did not move very far between appearances, and now they should have it, quite literally, cornered.

"Wait for it, wait for it—" Ford said.

He and Dipper both nearly jumped out of their skins when a deep voice boomed from behind them: "MY BABY!"

***

By the time Wendy had shot her Nehalem Park photos, ranging from the beach to the walking trails and to views of the mountains, her nagging feeling of alarm had increased. Once again she called Dipper.

This time he answered: "Hi, Wen, can't talk right now, got a situation, twins are fine."

"Gah!" Wendy viciously switched her phone from call mode.

"What's wrong?" Grace asked.

"Probably nothing," Wendy said. She called Mabel again.

Mabel answered in a soft voice: "Hi, Wen. Shh. Danny and Gwen and Sandi are all down for a nap."

"Are they OK?"

"They're fine! What could go wrong with me, Mabel, babysitting? Just a sec. OK, I'm texting you a picture."

"Aw," Grace said, looking over at the mat with the three sleeping kiddos sprawled out on it.

"Watch the road," Wendy warned. "Thanks, Mabes. Listen, I may head home pretty soon. I've still got a week's deadline and only two more days of shooting, so—"

"Don't worry!" Mabel said. "Everything's fine. Do your photo thing and then come home, but don't make your trip longer than it needs to be by doubling back here. I'm sure Ford will keep Dipper safe. Probably."

"I'll think about it," Wendy said. Instead of thinking, she worried.

Dipper's outlook had a way of rubbing off on her.

***

"Thank you," the weird creature said. It looked, as much as anything, like an enormous toad with seven legs, three tentacles, and nine eyes on stalks, and its body was indeed toadlike, except the mouth ran seventy per cent of the way around it. "How much should I pay you?"

"Nothing, nothing," Ford said, speaking through Fiddleford's universal translator device, which had pickups and speakers in every room of the basement. His words came out as gleeble glup gleeble, but the sort-of-toad thing seemed to understand.

She (Ford supposed the gender) heaved and belched up something that looked like a dinner-plate-sized, slightly flattened purple egg. "At least take this. And I apologize for Slunguggle's playing with his firstfather's dimension hopper. He's just a naughtums itty baby, really."

"Floorbie shzinkle pookie," said the translator, though what Ford had said was, "We're happy he's well."

The baby gargled, "Muppa loopa gumma goob." Obligingly, the translator said, "Muppa loopa gumma goob. Um, possibly 'The pen of my aunt is on the table?'"

"Come along, little one," said the probably-mother. She picked up the child, which now looked like a partly-metamorphosed tadpole version of her.

The creatures vibrated and shimmered out of existence.

"Well," Dipper said, "that happened."

Ford took a deep, unhappy breath. "It will take a lot of air freshener and pine cleanser to get the smell out of this laboratory."

They took the elevator upstairs, and Dipper, to his surprise, saw that the sun was down and the Shack was closing up. Ford thanked him. Deadpan, Dipper asked, "Aren't you going to share our babysitting fee with me?"

"Good Lord, you can have it all!" Ford said. "It's only a nodule of purple quartz."

"Kidding," Dipper told him.

***

At Mabel's, he went inside and found her snoozing in a recliner. "Wake up, Sis," he said. "Dinnertime!"

She yawned and blinked. "Dipper! Hi. Everything OK?"

"I'll tell you about it later," Dipper said. "Meanwhile, I brought you a pizza with everything. Also, I came to collect the twins."

"Yay, pizza! Oh, about your kids," Mabel said, grinning. "They wanted a sleepover, and I told them that's fine. My neighbor watched the kids for a few minutes, and I went up to your house and got them some clothes and PJ's and a few toys. They're being real quiet now, so let them stay over tonight. I love babysitting!"

That didn't sound like her, but Dipper shrugged. "Uh—well, sure, if you want—do you really love babysitting that much?"

"Oh, Brobro, it makes me want to have two more kids of my own! See you tomorrow around noon, OK?"

"That will be fine," Dipper said. "Say hi to Jimmy for me when he gets off duty. And save him some pizza."

Through a mouthful of crust, toppings, and mozzarella, she said, "Let Jimmy get his own. He knew the job was dangerous when he took it!"

He drove the short distance up Gopher Road and parked in the driveway. What a day. It's gonna be weird here all alone in the house, he thought. He'd become so used to the toddlers' clamor and giggles. Silence was going to be worse than their noise.

He was too tired to think about cooking. In the kitchen he slapped together a ham and cheese sandwich and chased it with a Pitt's. Then he trudged upstairs to the bedroom, tugging off his shirt and unfastening his belt as he went.

Dark in here already. He had stepped through the doorway and had pushed his pants down, kicking them aside, before he switched on the light—

"Don't stop there," Wendy said from the bed. She threw back the covers to show that she hadn't stopped there.

"You're back!" Dipper said joyfully.

"And my front, too," She said, grinning. "And now about those annoying boxer briefs—"

"Um, the kids are—"

"Are with Mabel, I know. She came up and got their overnight stuff to give us a little break. And Grace is at the motel in town, and she's gonna come and pick me up at six sharp tomorrow morning for the rest of my photo job, so we don't have all that much time together and we're all alone and I'm feeling kinda hot for you." She rolled out of bed and came over and removed his shorts for him. "Come to bed, man."

He did and as they pressed warmly together, she said, "I had a feeling all day that something was bad wrong here. Was I right?"

"Yes and no," he said, kissing his way down her throat. "Ford called me in for what turned out to be a routine job."

"Chasing spooks?" she asked. "Ooh, don't stop, that's nice."

"Babysitting," he answered her, and then carried on with the nice part.

**********

Story 6: Looking Back 

Memories can be scary. But also sweet. Especially when shared. Especially when shared in bed....

**********

Soos and Melody's fourth child, a daughter, making it like even steven, dawgs (as Soos said, meaning they now had two sons, two daughters) came into the world on the morning of Friday, July 13, 2022.

What a coincidence. From now on, little Stephanie and her dad could celebrate their birthdays together every year. "I'm gonna make sure she never hates her birthday, though," Soos said the first moment he saw his new daughter. "I'm planning on being a cool dad, not a cold one like mine was!"

Wendy and Dipper were sure he'd succeed. His other three kids adored him. Young Mr. and Mrs. Pines, not yet parents themselves (but they were trying to accomplish that), had watched after the three Ramirez kids from about six A.M. to ten that morning, while Soos was with Melody at the hospital. Then the blessed event occurred (actually at 8:33) and a couple of hours later, Soos had joyfully returned to the Shack with photos of Melody and the baby, which everyone told him was the most beautiful baby ever, an evident though kindly-intended falsehood. Stephanie looked crinkly and pouty and bald, like practically every other newborn.

"I really want to go back to the hospital to be with Melody," the big guy said apologetically. "This afternoon, when Stephanie and her will be in the room, like together, you know what I mean? If I can make arrangements, but no pressure on you, dawgs. I just really want to see my wife and our new baby!"

Anyway, Mabel took over babysitting at four that afternoon, and a little later, Soos called from the hospital to say cheerfully, "The doctor just told me, like, Melody and Stephanie can come home by ten on Sunday morning. She's doing great, and Stephanie's like a hundred per cent healthy, and, um, it was a real smooth delivery, Hambone. Two nights in the hospital, and boom! Like that, they get to come home. Isn't that great?"

The Pines twins and Wendy got everything ready by eight that evening, Soos returned from the hospital in time for dinner, and when Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy said good evening, he was happily regaling his other children with tales of how great their new sis was going to be. Mabel went on her way, and Dipper and Wendy drove back to their home, not far from the Shack.

"Hope our kids will be as sweet as Soos's," Dipper said as he and Wendy settled down for the evening. He reached for the remote. "Want to watch TV?"

"Let's just reminisce," Wendy said. "I'm in the mood for memories."

"OK," Dipper said, replacing the remote on the bedside table and slipping into bed beside her. "Let me see. I'll start. The first day we saw the Shack, which was a big surprise to us, Stan made me and Mabel go up to the attic and unpack, and when we came downstairs, you were at the cash register and Soos was fixing something. Stan introduced you both, but for a day or two I thought your name was Wanda, like Mom's, and Soos's was Zeus."

Wendy laughed. "I remember you wrote that in your journal," she said. "Zeus! What a name that'd be for him. Let me see. I kinda remember the first time I saw you guys, with Stan tellin' us that you were his niece and nephew. He had Mabel's name right, but he called you Dippy. Um, and you were wearing your cargo shorts and red shirt and blue vest, but your hat was different?"

"Was it?" Dipper thought. "Oh, right, that was my old brown trucker's cap, with a star on the front. I'd had that from the third grade! Or fourth? Anyway, I lost that one when Mabel and I were fighting off the Gnomes who wanted to marry her. We were in the golf cart, and one of them had his teeth in the bill of the cap when Mabel gut-punched him off me, and he and the hat flew out of the cart. Oh, you might not know this part: We got back to the Shack after it closed, kind of wrecked the golf cart and had to face down a hundred Gnomes, and by the time we staggered inside, we looked so beat-up that Stan told us we could each take one piece of merch. That's when I got my blue and white pine-tree hat—"

"Which you've replaced now a couple times," Wendy said.

"Yeah, lost one when I was trying to save Ford from a spaceship, and lost others at other times. I think the one I wear now is my fourth. Anyway, I chose a cap, Mabel chose a grappling hook."

"So that's where she got it!" Wendy said. "That's strange. I don't remember the Shack ever selling them!"

"I don't think it ever did," Dipper said. "I think the grappling hook was in a box of junk that Stan bought from an abandoned self-storage unit. Back then he did that to get raw material for making new exhibits."

"You and I didn't talk much those first few days," Wendy said. "Of course I remember early on when you came runnin' up to me and said you needed to borrow the golf cart to save Mabel from a zombie. I thought you were just tellin' a story so you could try out the cart! But, hey, this one time when I was twelve, I snuck off and drove Dad's pickup halfway to town before I ran it into a ditch. I could relate. I liked your moxie and gave you the key."

"That was the first time I'd ever driven one," Dipper admitted. "First time I'd driven anything! But I didn't hit any pedestrians!"

"Good on you, man." Wendy laughed.

"Yeah, and it turned out to be the Gnomes, not a zombie, but you know that story. I was driving the golf cart too fast to get away from that giant Gnome formation, and when we pulled up to the Shack, I rolled it. Mabel and I fell out on the grass but just got scratched up a little. I was so scared Stan would make us pay for the golf cart, though."

"Nah, it's still going. Sturdy hunk of junk!" Wendy burst out with a laugh. "Oh, my God, remember that time we tried to jump the golf cart off a ramp, and we totally busted it?"

"And Soos fixed it but also added a nitrous oxide booster!"

Now Wendy was laughing uncontrollably. "And—that time-we made—made the jump and crashed it through the freakin' roof!"

That started Dipper's laughter. "And we somehow gave Grunkle Stan the impression there'd been a freak tornado!"

They ranged to other summers. "Our first kiss," Dipper said. "That Fourth of July. I'll always recall that."

"At the fireworks," Wendy said. "Yeah, I remember real well."

"Then that time I had to wear Mabel's clothes and a wig and Mabel disguised herself in my clothes and hat so your dad wouldn't get mad if he saw us and thought you were hanging out with me."

Giggling, Wendy crooned, "Yeah, I kinda kissed a girl, and I liked it!"

They tried a little experiment. Yep, they still both liked kissing.

"Hey, man, that summer when I made you my assistant lifeguard and Poolcheck fired us both!" Wendy laughed again. "When I took you on, I didn't know you couldn't swim, I swear!"

A little more somberly, Dipper put his arm around her and said, "That time we fell off the boat into the Pacific."

"Yeah, so cold, Dip. I thought we were both dead."

"We passed out before the rescue chopper got there. They flew us to the hospital while we were both unconscious, and I woke up before you did, but to get me really awake, the doctor told me you had frostbite and they had to amputate your fingers."

Wendy shook her head. "So cruel. But it woke you up and we recovered. And remember they let us warm up in a nice hot shower?"

"Together," he said.

She snuggled close to him. "Yeah, and there we were wet and naked and hugging and nothing happened but a big slippery embrace. We were still too dazed to get up to anything sexy. But Dad would have freaked if he'd ever found out!"

"Anyhow, one summer you taught me how to swim," Dipper said. "In the lake, remember? We skinny-dipped, first time I'd ever done that. And then I got to go hot-tubbing with you in that nice steamy natural spring. Still love doing that. We ought to hike out there this weekend."

"It's a date, man! Don't pack any clothes!"

They kissed and fooled around a little. Then out of nowhere, Wendy asked, "What do you think was the weirdest thing we went through?"

"Getting stuck in that bizarre valley where everything morphed into monsters is way, way up there on my list," Dipper said.

"Me, I think it was following that ghost into the creepy dimension where Gravity Falls was a cartoon show, and we got stuck at a comic-book convention, and we like entered a masquerade dressed as ourselves—"

Dipper couldn't stop chuckling. "And we came in second! And Mabel's still pissed about that!"

"We all suddenly had five fingers," Wendy said. "And we all felt so heavy and all. And we met that dimension's versions of McGucket and Soos. Guy from Georgia, I think. Anyway, he was our Soos in the masquerade, remember? Real nice guy."

"And with other McGucket's help, we finally put the ghosts to rest."

"Yeah. So many times things we thought were terrifying turned out to be sorta OK when we understood what was going on."

"Like the Sentivore's cave. When the butterflies captured Mabel."

"Man," Wendy said softly, "I really thought you were dead that time. But it was the clone of you from the copy machine."

"That was rough," Dipper said. "We found Mayellen McGucket and rescued her, but we lost the last two clones."

"Yeah, and then later on, the next summer, I think, Soos's dad died up in Canada, and Soos told us about the only time he'd seen the guy since like forever. He came to the Shack the previous winter and bummed money off Soos and then ran off to Canada. Harsh."

"I remember the funeral," Dipper said. "Soos cried like a little baby, but not so much because his dad had passed away. He talked about how Stan had become his second father, remember? And Mabel and you and I were like his sisters and brother."

"Yeah, and that reminds me of how later we put up memorials to the two clones near that awful cave."

"And we visited your mother's grave."

They were silent for a while, sharing thoughts without speaking.

"Dip, when were you the most scared?" Wendy asked.

"Lots of times. When Gideon was completely off the rails and built his giant robot and kidnapped Mabel. I jumped from the cliff to crash into the robot and fight him. I was really furious about his taking Mabel, but mostly I was terrified." He considered it a little more. "Really, though, about the most scared I've ever been was when I investigated the Westminster House and ran into a lich. That was horrible."

"Yeah, but you had cute little Eloise by your side. No, man, Brujo was way worse than that," Wendy said. "Nearly as evil as Bill Cipher in Weirdmageddon."

After a few minutes of snuggling, Dipper reflected, "So many good memories, too. I remember all the holidays we got to spend together. The Christmas we helped the Sawyer family. And you and Stan went off somewhere to get Mr. Sawyer out of jail. Somebody was stealing stuff all over town that winter. We thought the Gnomes had all turned into kleptomaniacs or something."

"Yeah, Stan and I sprang Mr. Sawyer from jail and gave that fat, crooked cop the surprise of his life!" Wendy said. "Oh, and did I ever tell you how Stan and I once burgled a museum?"

"What?" he asked.

Arching her eyebrows, Wendy zipped her lip. "Maybe later," she said enigmatically.

"All right," Dipper said. "Oh, and the time you got that magic axe—"

"Not magic, enchanted," Wendy corrected. "Came down from my ancestor Archibald, yeah. That's why I usually carry that one when we go into the unknown!"

"Like the abandoned gold-mining town. That creature was scary."

"Meh, we've faced worse. Just remembering it all, whoosh! I mean, we've had exciting lives, man," Wendy said.

"Yeah. And soon now, it's going to get a lot more exciting," Dipper told her.

"I know what you're thinking," Wendy said as they caressed each other.

Of course she did. When they were touching, they both read each other's minds. They kissed and fondled and did a few other things. Wendy said, "The thought of it still kind of scary to me, though. You think we can get pregnant in the next year?"

"Not unless we work on it," Dipper said.

"Dude, I notice you're getting all the tools ready."

"Mm. Too tired?"

"Dipper, I'm a flippin' Corduroy." She moved closer and kissed him long and hard. "And if you want to work on it—yeah, that's good—let's get started."

Not that they ever kept a score card, but if they had, of the times they'd made love, well, you know. The honeymoon would be way up on that list. A few times when they'd faced danger and had come through and celebrated their escape in each other's arms rated high, too.

But, to tell the truth, that night, when they set out with a determination to become parents, that night everything got so intense and so good that it rocketed to spot number one.

Um, and also two. And before the sun rose the next morning four.

Not three, though. The three spot was occupied. Well, what did you expect? Man, the honeymoon had to be in the top three.

**********

Story 7: Birthdays

And Many Happy Returns….

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

"Here they are!" Dipper said from the front window.

"Yay," Wendy responded. She started to get up from the easy chair.

Dipper waved her off with a big smile. "No, wait here. I'll go help them in. You just take it easy."

"You're babying me, but OK," Wendy said with a grin as she settled back into the chair and put her feet up. "You're gonna suffer, though, 'cause you know Mabes is gonna have a ton of luggage!"

He opened the door. "I know."

Dipper went out onto the porch. Brilliant, already hot August day, sun climbing up and already about a third of the way to noon, no clouds up in the blue, humidity low and a little breeze to help. Not shabby at all. The SUV, a red Canyonero, had just parked in a slot, and Mabel threw open the passenger-side front door and hopped out as he came down the gift-shop steps to meet her. "Broseph!" she yelled as she stood on tiptoes and arched her back, hands thrust to the sky. "Come and help Teek!"

"That's why I'm here," Dipper said, approaching her. "And by the way, happy birthday, Sis."

Mabel did a little celebratory three-second dance. "Back at you, Broseph. Sorry it took us this long to come up to Oregon to see you and your new place. How's the house working out?"

"It's great," Dipper said as Teek got out of the driver's seat, waved, and walked around, to open the hatch of the SUV. Mabel hugged Dipper and then stepped back for a better look at the log house.

"Manly Dan outdid himself," she said. "Looks so . . . modern! How many rooms?"

"Wendy will give you and Teek the tour. But there's three bedrooms, three bathrooms, study, kitchen/dining room, living room, and on the second floor two attic rooms we haven't even put furniture in yet. Nice basement too if we want to expand. On four acres. And we're only a mile from the Mystery Shack! Here, Teek, let me help you with that. How's life in L.A?"

Teek smiled. "Well, I just got a promotion from production assistant to Mr. Chalkyn's personal assistant. So I get to work side by side with a director plus a twenty per cent raise!"

"Teek's the only one that can keep old Chatty Chalky focused," Mabel explained. "Teek sets up meetings and tasks for the day, makes sure he gets to them, has all the data he'll need when he gets there. Schedules the whole day and gets Mr. Director where he's supposed to be, then is right at his side during shooting. Oh, and because of Teek, production on Eagle Sauadron's coming in on time and under budget."

"Down side," Teek began—he pointed toward a heavy gray suitcase—"Could you get that one, please? Down side of my job is Chalkyn's gonna want to take me with him if he changes studios, and he will because he always stirs up trouble and goes on to the next producer in town. I mean, his movies make money, but he's hard to get along with."

"Sounds great," Dipper said, hauling out two suitcases. "Hey, Mabel, at least take one of these!"

The three lugged in a total of five suitcases, three of them Mabel's.

Wendy was standing by the fireplace—no fire there in August, of course—and Mabel dropped her suitcase and said, "Hi, Wen—"

Mabel broke off, clapped her hands to her cheeks, and shrieked.

Wendy said, "Happy birthday, Mabes! Dip and I are gonna drive you and Teek over to Ford's house for the party this afternoon. Hope you had a good drive from California—what's the matter with you?"

"Holy Moley!" Mabel said, laughing. "The matter with me? You gotta be kidding!"

Three months and ten days earlier-Saturday, May 21, 2022

Early in the morning, from the bathroom, Wendy called, "Hey, Dip, come here for a minute!"

Dipper, propped up in bed with his laptop on his thighs, murmured, "Hmm?"

"Just come here."

"Hang on, answering an email to my publisher . . . there." He set the laptop down on the bedside table and swung out of bed. Wendy always took her shower first, unless they were conserving water and showering together, or unless Dipper had to get up way early for some reason, like an emergency call from Ford regarding a vampire bat infestation or an eldritch abomination in the ladies' room of the library.

Dipper was wearing gray boxer shorts and a white tee shirt, his usual sleep attire. He didn't bother with slippers.

He opened the bathroom door. Wendy, wearing a grin and nothing else at all, stood at her sink. She not yet showered—the big mirror over the double sink hadn't misted. "What have you got on your mind?" he asked.

"Take a look, Dip." She wrinkled her nose stuck out her tongue. "Not at my boobs, at what I'm holding in my hand."

He took the plastic wand from her and looked at the little window in it. "Wow!" he said.

Two lines, both bright pink and sharply defined. Two.

He blinked at the two lines and smiled like an idiot. "Can I hug you?"

"You better. It's my birthday today!"

Hugging a completely nude girl, especially one as gorgeous as Wendy, especially one as warm and soft and loving as Wendy, especially one with whom one shares a touch-telepathy—well, it's nice.

—Happy birthday, Wendy. And by the way, I love you. Oh, what are we supposed to do next—

Don't panic, man! I'll make an appointment first thing Monday.

—Oh, right, right. Is it still OK for me to take you to The Club this evening for your birthday?

Sure it is! I've got a craving for filet magnon and crème brulee for dessert! No wine though. But it's barely daylight, it's a long time to dinner. Tell you what I want, let's celebrate.

He got a flash of how she wanted to celebrate.

—Uh, is that, our doing that you know, OK?

She showed him just exactly how OK it was.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

"Why didn't you let me know?" Mabel asked, jumping up and down as if she were ten.

"Thought we'd make it a surprise," Wendy said.

Teek finally put down the two large suitcases he'd lugged in. "It really is!" he said.

"How many months?" Mabel asked. "You're really showing!"

"About four and a half," Wendy said.

Mabel poked her twin's face and mussed his hair. "Dipper! You're gonna be a dad! You better write five or six new books—wait a minute. Wen, I gotta ask, boy or girl?"

Wendy glanced at Dipper. Dipper nodded.

So Wendy said, "That's why my tummy's so big. Twins. One of each, actually."

Mabel's whoop of joy rattled the windows.

"We're pretty sure they're both gonna be red-haired," Dipper said.

Teek looked a little puzzled. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, red hair's usually a recessive gene, but Wendy's special. She's got flippin' Corduroy genes!"

"So you beat us to the punch," Mabel said. "Teek and I are trying."

"You'll get there," Wendy said. "Keep a watch on your temperature and strike the days after the thermometer's hot."

"Yeah, already keeping track," Mabel said. "Ooh, I'm so excited! I'll decorate a nursery for you! Which room's the nursery?"

"There's time for that later," Dipper said. "Sit down, you've been driving for hours."

"One thing, Mabes," Wendy said as they all sat. "Grunkle Stan wants to be godfather to every child you have. And to ours too."

"It'll do him good," Dipper said. "He's kinda feeling his age, and he laments that he never had kids."

Mabel was holding Teek's hand. "OK, we'll talk to him about that, but you guys were sneaky about not telling us you were pregnant."

Wendy answered her seriously: "It's a big deal now, bringing babies into this mixed-up crazy world. It's a serious thing, and I just wanted to make sure I was getting through the first trimester OK."

"She did," Dipper said. "Flying colors."

"Especially during morning sickness," Wendy said. She became serious again: "Yeah, but you think about possibilities, you know. So much could go bad wrong. And it's huge responsibility. On the other hand—"

"I get to be Aunty Mabel! Those kids are gonna be slopping over with love! When are you due?"

"Doc says December 15, but that's an estimate and can be way off."

Mabel had her phone out and tapped out the date in the calendar app.

For a short while everyone just sat smiling at everyone else. Then Teek and Wendy started to sing "Happy Birthday," and Mabel got bashfully teary and Dipper said the presents for his sister were in the next room.

"No," Mabel said, her face shining. "Right here I got my big unofficial sister and my younger brobro right here. I got my nearly lifelong crush who's also married to me. And I got me. Let me get used to being an aunt-to-be. That, now. That's the best gift I've ever received."

"Tell us that again when you've been changing diapers and wiping bottoms for a day or so," Wendy challenged.

"Hey," Teek said, "don't knock it. We know that's how a girl tells a niece or nephew 'I love you."'

Squeezing her husband's hand, looking at them all with shining eyes, Mabel said, "I love everybody!"

**********

Story 8- Wild Card

 Because in life there’s always some random element….

Around 7:15 PM, an icy night in February 2022 . . .

The tree came out of nowhere. One second Wendy was driving along a curving Roadkill County Road, looking ahead to a date-night evening with her husband, and the next second a gigantic tree was falling, headlights showing it smashing to the pavement right in front of her car, too late to—

Crash.

Darkness . . ..

***

Grunkle Stan put his hand on Dipper's shoulder. Quietly he said, "Go get some shut-eye, kid. I'll wait here with Wendy and call you pronto if anything happens."

Wendy lay so still, so pale, in bed, her head swathed in bandages, her face bruised, more bandages on her arms, a yellowish IV drip feeding into the crook of her left elbow. "I can't leave," Dipper said hoarsely, his eyes red and bagged from lack of sleep. He'd been sitting in the hospital room for twenty-eight hours now, and the doctors kept saying, "We don't know, son. We'll have to see how it goes in the next few hours. We just don't know."

Stan patted his shoulder, gently. "Kid, you're beat. Look, the Stanleymobile is parked right outside the hospital. Two minute walk from here. Back seat is plenty big enough for you to stretch out. Here's my spare key. Grab a blanket from the shelf there. You go, I'll stay, and I'll call you with any news."

"Thanks," Dipper said wearily as he pushed up to his feet and swayed a little. "Oh—Mabel's finally managed to get a flight. She should be here late tonight." He stood by the bed and stooped to kiss his wife's cheek. "Hang in there, Wen," he said. "Remember, you're a flipping Corduroy."

Stan took Dipper's place in the chair and settled in for the vigil. It was late, getting close to midnight, a little warmer than it had been the day before. He reached into his outer jacket pocket and took something out. Then he sat still and waited, listening to the hospital sounds, the monitors, the occasional ding of somebody calling a nurse.

When the lights dimmed, he sat up straighter, taking a deep breath of the disinfectant-scented hospital air. "Here you are," he said. "Might as well let me see you. I know you're here and why you're here."

Like a storm cloud coalescing from vapor, a dark form materialized. It became a tall, robed, hooded skeletal figure, grasping a scythe. The skull tilted to the right. ARE YOU A WIZARD?

"Me? Naw, I'm just a guy." Stanley nodded toward Wendy. "The lady in the bed, there, she's my niece. By marriage."

USUALLY I AM VISIBLE ONLY TO WIZARDS OR WITCHES. AND THOSE WHOSE TIME HAS COME, OF COURSE.

"Yeah, I'm no wizard, but I been around. You've come for her, right? But it don't necessarily have to be her, if all the old folklore stories are in any way true. There's certain escape clauses. Unless you're really just a vengeful SOB."

VENGEFUL? DON'T LOOK ON THIS AS MALICE. I DO WHAT MUST BE DONE. I HAVE NO MALICE IN ME.

"You're dodgin' the issue. Come on, like I say, I been around. I'm Mr. Mystery. Retired. I read and saw enough weird stuff in my time to know there's always rules, and rules always have exceptions. So you don't have to take her, right, if I volunteer to go in her place. True?"

IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT. TRADITION HOLDS THAT TO WIN A REPRIEVE, A MORTAL MUST BEST ME IN A CONTEST.

"I challenge you to a pie-eating contest! And first one who drops part of the pie on the floor loses! Hah!"

For the briefest of moments, the fixed grin on the skeletal face seemed to show the faintest flicker of amusement. I MUST DECLINE. BUT THAT WAS A GOOD ONE, STANLEY PINES.

"Yeah, I was just pulling your leg. Straight up now, no fooling. You go in for, what, chess?"

SORRY, NO. I CAN NEVER REMEMBER HOW THE LITTLE HORSES MOVE.

Stan held up the deck he had taken from his pocket. "How about some Tarot Hold 'Em, nothing wild?"

Though the visitor's eyes could not blink, somehow they gave the impression of blinking. YOU HAVE PIQUED MY INTEREST. HOWEVER, PLAYING FOR JUST ONE LIFE IS RATHER LOW-STAKES.

"OK, OK," Stan said. "Gotcha. Penny-ante's no fun. Here's the deal: One hand. Double or nothing."

SO IF I WIN, I TAKE BOTH OF YOU, BUT IF YOU WIN—

"You get neither. Or if you have to take something, find a sick bird or squirrel or something. But no humans. Like a what do you call it, scapegoat. That's allowed, the stories tell us. What do you say?"

LET US FIRST AGREE ON THE RULES OF THE GAME.

It took them some time, but Stan had already noticed that the wall clock's second hand had frozen at five ticks to midnight, and all sounds had stilled. Somehow time had paused for this. Finally, they agreed to the basic proposition: The Major Arcana would be left out of the deck. The Minor Arcana would be played like a poker deck. Each player would be dealt two hole cards, face-down, and then five more community cards, face-up, and from the total seven, each player would select five to make up his hand. After a minor bit of quibbling, they agreed on just one wild card. Stan disliked wild cards, but as the visitor insisted, THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A RANDOM ELEMENT.

"OK, I'll agree to that," Stan said, spreading out the whole deck. "Here, point out the wild card you want." A bony finger tapped one. Stan snorted as he added it to the fifty-six card deck of Minor Arcana. "Figures."

Stan pocketed the smaller stack of Major Arcana. They pulled up the narrow hospital table, the kind that raised and lowered so a bed-bound patient would have a place for plates, silverware, and cups or glasses. Stan sat forward in his chair. The other stood but bent a little. Stan neatened the deck. "Cut the cards. And not with that thing!"

DON'T POINT. IT IS VERY SHARP. AND I APPRECIATE THE HUMOR. The bony hand reached out and cut the deck as nearly equally as anyone could, probably twenty-eight cards in one stack, twenty-nine in the other. Stan shuffled repeatedly.

He dealt one card to his opponent, one to himself, then another to each. As he picked up his two, he said, "We're not fooling with flop, turn, and river bets. Here go the first three."

He laid them down one by one. Ace of Wands. Three of Pentacles. King of Wands.

Stan reflected. He held the Knight of Wands and the wild card. OK, he could make that at least a pair of aces, not too shabby.

NOW, REMIND ME OF THE VALUE OF THE POSSIBLE HANDS.

With a sigh, Stan reviewed the various hands and their standing. "Ready now?"

READY.

Stan dealt the Queen of Wands. "Interesting," he said. "We still good for the deal?"

WE ARE STILL GOOD. THE SUSPENSE IS NOT KILLING ME.

"Hah! Good one yourself!"

Stan dealt the final card. Page of Wands.

READY FOR THE SHOW-DOWN, STANLEY PINES?

"Yeah, I guess. Whatcha got?"

Death showed the Ace of Pentacles and the Queen of Swords he held. TWO QUEENS AND TWO ACES.

Stan whistled in admiration. "Nice. Two good pair you got there. However—" He laid down his cards. "Page of Wands. Knight of Wands. Queen of Wands. Wild card, I'm using as King of Wands. And Ace of Wands. Royal flush."

I SEE.

Stan tapped the Death card. "That's the one you insisted be wild. It's wild. So I say it's now King of Wands, and I win."

A BIT IRONIC, I SUPPOSE.

"You accusing me of cheatin'?" Stanley asked with a grin.

His opponent silently returned his grin. Bit of a foregone conclusion, that . . ..

***

Dipper rushed into the hospital room, still clutching his phone. The doctor stood by Wendy's bed, his back to the door, but he turned, saw Dipper, and, his eyes above his green surgical mask obviously smiling, gave him a thumbs-up.

"What happened?" Wendy asked in a woozy, weak voice.

"You're going to be OK," Dipper said, leaning close to her, his tears falling onto her face. He kissed her lips, very gently. "You had an accident, but—you're going to be OK!"

Then he turned—and saw Stanley sitting slumped in the chair. A scatter of oversized cards lay on the floor between his feet, his cell phone beneath his dangling, limp right hand.

Dipper gasped. "Oh, no."

He stepped around the doctor, who was murmuring reassurances to Wendy, and fearfully reached to shake his Grunkle's shoulder.

"Hey! Hands off! Oh, it's you," Stan said, jerking. "Sorry, Dipper. Thought somebody was tryin' to pick my pocket. I wasn't asleep, I was just resting my eyes. Like I told you on the phone, I knew Wendy'd come through."

He grunted and bent over and began to pick up his phone and the scattered Tarot cards.

"What were you doing?" Dipper asked, staring at the colorful cards his Grunkle was gathering..

"Ah, hand me that Death card, kid. Thanks. What do you think I was doing? I was playing a hand of solitaire. Might play another one tomorrow night, who knows. Wendy's been asking for you."

"Dipper?" Wendy croaked as the doctor paused to shake Dipper's hand. "My head hurts and I'm thirsty."

As he straightened the deck, Stan said, "Go take care of your wife, knucklehead."

"Water will be fine," the doctor said. "Everything looks great. I'll be in again before eight, but Wendy's turned the corner. Good night."

Dipper was so tired he fumbled and nearly spilled as he poured ice water from the pitcher into a plastic glass. Stan smiled as he watched his nephew hold a bent straw to Wendy's lips and she began to drink. When she'd finished half the glass, he heard her whisper, "I love you so much."

Stan decided the two needed their privacy and left them alone. On the way out, he stopped at the small first-floor chapel, where Manly Dan was praying. "Hey, Dan, good news," he said. "She's gonna make it. Go up and say hi, and then get your butt to bed. She needs rest, and you ain't gonna be any good to her all wore out."

Manly Dan shook his hand, nearly crushing it. He glanced upward and rasped, "Thank you, Lord," before he hurried out of the chapel and toward the elevators. Stan honked his nose in his handkerchief and walked out of the hospital, not to go home immediately but just to stand for a minute and look up at the stars. "Anytime you want a game, putz," he said genially. "You know where I am."

His cell phone chimed and he took it from his inside jacket pocket. "Yeah?"

A strained, frightened voice: "Grunkle Stan?"

He grinned. "Pumpkin! Wendy—"

Mabel's voice was frantic. "Oh, God, is she—"

"Calm down, Doc says she'll pull through fine." Stan heard Mabel whisper something, a prayer, and then he asked, "Where are you?"

"Portland, airport. I'll drive—wait, I'm too young to rent a car. I'll do something, call an Uber or catch a bus—"

"Nah. You just go get something to eat," Stan said, glancing at his watch. "Then rest somewhere in the airport. Keep your phone handy. I'll be there in two and a half hours."

Sounding exhausted and edgy, Mabel blurted, "It's so late! Are you up to driving—"

"Kid, way I feel now, I could drive for a day and a night. I think I just might live for a hundred more years. Do what I told you. And I love you, Mabel."

Now she was sobbing. She said something he could not catch, her voice strangled with relief and tears.

"Anyhow, I'll call you soon as I get there." It came out maybe a little gruffer than he'd meant. In a gentler tone, he added, "I'll meet you at the passenger pick-up. And dry up the waterworks before I see you."

"I love you too," she squeaked.

On his way out of the hospital lot, just after the turn on the highway, Stan saw a brownish blur—a rabbit bursting from cover and darting across the road. He heard a thump on the undercarriage.

Stan sighed and pulled over to the shoulder. Resignedly, he climbed out of the car and walked back until in the glow of parking-lot lights from the hospital he found the young rabbit, unbloodied, still warm, but its body loose with the finality of death.

"So you had to make me hurt a little," Stan said. He laid the small rabbit in the yellow, overgrown grass beside the road. "You couldn't just lose gracefully, could you?"

He didn't see a thing, but he perhaps heard a remote voice: A LIFE HAD TO BE TAKEN. AND IT IS FITTING THAT SOME GRIEF MUST COME AT SUCH A TIME. STILL, REMEMBER THE ONE I CAME FOR.

Stan walked back to his car, nursing a sour grudge. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, I guess. I gotta go get my niece now. My niece by blood, not by marriage."

DRIVE SAFELY.

Despite himself, Stan smiled—grimly—as he got into the driver's seat. "That a warning?"

JUST FRIENDLY ADVICE.

"You're kind of a cruel bastard, ain't ya?"

When no answer came, Stan started the engine, turned on the heater and pulled back—carefully—onto the highway. "Nah," he said to the night. "I guess not cruel. Just a real workaholic."

**********

That wraps it up for this Wendip Week of 2022. Of course, this last tale must tip a black felt hat to the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett.

 

OK, Wendippers, see you next summer!

And for Dipper and Mabel,

 

8-1-16-16-25 2-9-18-20-8-4-1-25!

[ubyr-babaj]

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Мои самые популярные посты в 2022:

#5

I think another part of DID people don't mention often enough is that the mental map of the places around you becomes kind of... Fucked?

Like we have alters who have been dormant for almost twenty years and they still remember the city the way it was in 2005 and go: "Wait, what do you mean this DVD store is closed? The VHS-rental next door is gone?" and we have to go, brother in Christ, yeah. Also... Nobody owns VHS/DVD-players anymore.

316 заметок - опубликовано 30 сентября 2022 г.

#4

Shout out to Francis Ford Coppola who read about a 19 year old girl asking to sleep in her mom's room because of nightmares and went: "Yep, this young lady is a total whore"

330 заметок - опубликовано 24 августа 2022 г.

#3

Lucy in the book: Oh my god, Mina, I wish I could marry three dudes so that I won’t hurt anyone’s feelings! My internalized misogyny leaves me deathly afraid to establish any boundaries and think about what I actually want. I’m going to fake being ok and happy as this mysterious disease drains me so that I don’t worry my friends, my husband and my mom, all of whom I love very much!

Lucy in pop-culture:

376 заметок - опубликовано 12 июня 2022 г.

#2

I honestly will never be over the fact that Van Helsing, the most well-known vampire slayer, enters the narrative with the letter that's pretty much: "Ja, freund-Jack, if it wasn't for your thirsty twink ass texting me after all those years, I wouldn't even look at that dying girl, anyway, please get me a hotel room, datta boi"

455 заметок - опубликовано 2 сентября 2022 г.

Мой пост №1 в 2022

People saying Johnathan is kinda oblivious are missing the simple fact that in the start of the novel both him and his bride are like... Broke as shit.

Like he has barely started working as a lawyer and Mina is an orphan (no dowry for you, Mina) who has just started working as a teacher. 

Johnathan’s relationship with Dracula is the law equivalent of tolerating that weird dude who commissions you fucked up furry porn, keeps asking for tweaks and telling you his whole life-story, but you just can’t turn him down because your cat is sick and you really want to buy your GF some cool stuff.

2 122 заметки - опубликовано 10 мая 2022 г.

Получите свой Обзор 2022 года в Tumblr →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[witchinghouracademy]

🤥 🌌 🙉 FOR VERO AND MINAMI MAYBE…. 🥹

GIRLBOSS TIME but the type of boss girl u vent abt on twt

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

Overall, no. Terrible at lying in the spot. Why would she want to be a good liar anyways? Why does she owe anyone the skill to lie instead of saying things as they are? No, someone of her station shouldn't lie, because it shows both cowardice and powerlessness.

... means she sucks at surprise parties tho.

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

WELL. obvs her inspiration is Cerberus. First thing was her sense of loyalty and duty, that of a guard with a task that takes all eternity to fulfill.

She was a sorta foil for Idia, specially with her starting at Ignihyde but holding traditional values. Pretty sure from the start I wanted to play around Vero being neither fully Cerberus (loyal dog with a lord) or Persephone (Idia's sweetheart bound by fate). I like them best as being connected by fate platonically tbh. Vero was someone who resented Idia being above her despite her being more capable, the injustice of fate being decided before they were born, and all her accomplishments being unable to surpass that. Now that she's in Ryxabyss her chapter is very much about her surpassing those limits, refusing to bow to not to Idia (who frankly never saw her below him anyways) but Olympus as a whole. Using chaos to establish a new rule.

🙉 HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

That anyone she cares about has died. She's been surrounded by death since she was born, and knows it'll happen one day, but any preparation pales to real life. After all, she does technically have the power to bring them back. She could. But she mustn't. It's a new layer of grief.

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

Minami's a pretty good liar, in short bursts. As her social battery drains she becomes more likely to slip up or just doesn't care anymore. It's easy to tell when she's slipping, but do you wanna press it? She'll just tell you to go fuck yourself.

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

I wanted a pink dorm.

.... AHSADKJFDKJD FR I really wanted to use that shade of pink, so went looking for candidates. A friend is very into GF and I remembered GIFFany. Rewatching the episode I was like, trying to see things from her perspective, and ended feeling for her. Having a depressed man use your time and energy to feel better and then when he's recovered ignoring you is not that uncommon 💀

So first thing was that I REALLY didn't want to make her the topical yandere japanese highschool girl like. come on. 🙄 So I decided she's not yandere, she has justified yet excessive anger issues. Her "sweet facade" is just trying to pass as normal, so people don't gossip about her. Not "I want to kill you because I love you" but "I want to kill you because you don't even think I'm capable of love, of grief, of being hurt."

🙉 HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

A joke about her being unfeeling or stonefaced like a robot. It brings up trauma from being bullied as a child, so it gets you on her shit list immediately. Would push you in front of a bus on a bad day type of hate.

It's also why only Jojo can call her "Ai". Because she knows Jojo isn't making an "artificial intelligence" jab at her and only, truly means it as a nickname for "Airi." And it still cost a whole ass argument to get that privilege lol

#asks #vero guardia #minami airi #dinogeese #GOOD ASK CHOICE HEHE. THANK U