#stan nightmare cops

[babygirlalaura]

so uhhh catboystandaily went down the shitter due to unforeseen circumstances and

#tosses this here and runs away as if i were being chased by a hostile creature of the night #my art #drawing #I'd like to make a personal apology to a mr. jeff bandelin #catboy #catMAN. #Nightmare Cops #nightmare cops fanart #newgrounds #stan nightmare cops #his name is stan nightmare cops #please ignore the cake and vomit

[cchipollo]

art dump

#star trek #star trek tng #star trek ds9 #silly chippy ocs #qcard #scribbles #nd other shit like theres matt and stan from nightmare cops yaaaayy #sorry this has to be all mixed up together lol

[spook-e-snail]

She is so sillay!! :D!! (Shes killed a man dead and will likely kill again in the near future)

#nightmare cops #newgrounds #also hi there I'm trying to watermark my art more often now #lil signature was slipped in there #anyways signature aside I actually really like drawing Chris for some reason?? #like dont get me wrong im a certified Stan enjoyer but i just. like how my art looks with her?? its weird #this is vaguely based off of that one screenshot where she has stickers on her boots btw #i tried some more funky poses and im NOT too sure how I feel about it but fuck it we ball #my art #fake blood #like cartoonish blood

[brolyng]

Nightmare Cops

#nightmare cops #newgrounds #ng #chris #jason #stan #art #digitalart

[ihateleviack]

I've started watching Jetpack Joyride vlogs since yesterday (currently on #31), and I hate how I've been actually enjoying them lmao. I want to draw Barry so badly. He's so freaking lame and I love him for it💕.

Idk if you guys can read the texts but it reads

1) a) [Stan]: I did NOT gaf

B) [Barry]: "Was listening to his theme like 3 times (a day)". "Also didn't gaf"

2) "Captain (mine lol)"

3) (Barry with a paper bag over his head) "Got called ugly one too many times" (this is based on his vlogs)

#And y'know there's Nightmare Cops #n Senpai #and tankdad #I love how you can tell that Barry and Stan's looks have gradually improved #even if it they're just doodles and it's only been a few days lol

[ckret2]

Chapter 16 of human Bill has taken an "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me" approach to being the Mystery Shack's prisoner (title TBD), featuring:

Also featuring: Ford and Mabel bonding... until things go very, very wrong. Thanks Bill.

####

October 2012

As Stan turned the corner, he paused to let his eyes adjust as he came out of the blinding evening sun into the shadows of a tight, unobtrusive street, then shuffled up to where Ford was waiting. "All right, I think we shook the cops," he muttered. "The were-rats should keep 'em distracted. Smart move, splitting up to lead them to each other." He rummaged through the bag of ("borrowed") groceries that had caused them all this trouble, looking for a stick of cured meat he'd had his eye on.

"Mm." That was all Ford said.

Stan looked sharply at Ford. "Hey, you okay? The rats didn't get you, did they?" He glanced over Ford for any torn clothes or blood.

"No—sorry, I'm fine. Just..." He gestured at the storefront across the street. "Distracted."

Stan followed his gesture. He couldn't read the language on the signs, but he didn't need to: the pictures in the windows—tarot cards, palmistry charts, a hand-painted poster of a crystal ball, all surrounded by unlit neon tubes shaped into stars—made it clear enough just what kind of shop this was. Stan laughed. "Hey, it looks like what Ma did with the pawn shop after Dad passed. When we're back in the States, I oughta find a picture for you. Or maybe Shermie can 'e-mail' us one, I think his kid was 'digitalizing' the old family photos..." He trailed off as he saw what Ford was really staring at.

Amongst the other dark neon lights, there was a single larger one, just over the name of the shop: a triangle with an eye.

Stan shuddered. "Ugh. I'm never gonna be able to look at those things the same way again, are you?"

"I haven't been able to for over thirty years," Ford said. "It's funny—in most civilized dimensions in the multiverse, that symbol is incredibly taboo, because as soon as it's drawn it becomes his eye. I only ever saw it used as the direst warning in places tainted by the Nightmare Realm—places he could already see."

Stan snorted. "Coming home must've been a rude shock, huh?"

It was true—Ford saw Bill peering from every dollar, winking slyly at him from strangers' gold rings, standing solemn vigil over graveyards from the headstones. Ford remembered the first time he'd returned to his study: of course he'd known that all his art of Bill was still there, but he'd been stunned by the sheer quantity of eyes watching him, ready to welcome him home. He'd awkwardly hidden himself beneath a bedsheet like a ghost to keep Bill from staring at him as he went around the room, covering every tapestry, drawing, and statue with black curtains. He hoped Bill hadn't been actively watching then. He knew he'd looked stupid.

"You don't know the half of it." Ford nodded toward the psychic shop. "Looking at that face now feels like seeing a toxic waste warning sign."

"Do you think she knows?" Stan asked.

"'She'?"

"The psychic!" Apparently, Stan had decided the psychic was a woman. "D'you think she knows what that is? Did he slip her prophecies to start up her business? Or is it just a spooky magic symbol to her?"

Stan was probably expecting Ford to vaguely speculate—but instead, he eyed the symbol critically. "It's got a slit pupil, which is always a worrying sign," he said, "but that could just be an aesthetic choice. If it had his clothing or limbs, I'd know for sure it's meant to be him, but without..."

As they'd spoken, the evening had crept on and the shadows in the alley had deepened; and now it was dark enough that someone inside the shop flipped the neon lights on. Multicolored stars danced around the window. The triangle lit up bright yellow. The pupil and top eyelid had burned out, so now it looked like the Eye of Providence was perpetually asleep, eye shut.

Stan and Ford both shivered.

"That's probably a coincidence, right?" Stan said. "That's—that's just bad luck."

"There's absolutely no scientific reason why Bill's death would cause depictions of his face to—um—malfunction," Ford said. "It's definitely a coincidence." He said it like he was sure.

"Right," Stan said. "C'mon, we should head back to the beach before someone finds our boat." He turned away from the shop. As he walked, he fished his wallet out of his pocket, rifled through the money until he found some American currency, and squinted at it to make sure Bill's eye was still open.

Ford didn't move. He was still staring at the triangle.

Did she know, he wondered? (She or he or whoever owned this shop.) Did Bill have a worshiper here? Perhaps just another distant believer who'd been recruited by one of the micro-cults Bill left in his wake, five degrees and fifty years removed from a former "student" that Bill had "inspired" and then abandoned?

Or had Bill met them in their dreams? Had he been summoned up to give them inspiration and knowledge of the future? Did they remember Bill as the central figure in a visionary dream that now made up the core of their spirituality? Maybe he'd visited them more than once, while trying to decide whether they'd be useful to him? Perhaps he'd been grooming the fortune teller into his minion, feeding them lines he wanted to pass on to a local politician or scientist? Did he ever play board games with them?

Did they worship him still?

Did they know their god was dead?

Stan called from the end of the street, "Ford?" 

"Coming." Ford tore his gaze away from the dead face. "I kept expecting it to blink."

Stan laughed nervously. "Yeah, real funny."

Stan and Ford watched each other from their peripheral vision as they turned the corner, to make sure neither of them tried to glance back to check.

They returned to their boat, set sail, and had dinner. And when Stan went to bed, Ford sat out on the deck, looked at the stars—and wept.

He'd cried when he'd thought his brother had lost his memories forever. He hadn't cried in the month and a half since then. He didn't want anyone to watch him grieve the worst monster he'd ever met.

####

There'd been an ache in Ford's chest for over thirty years—an empty pit that once held awe—a dark void that used to be filled with starlight. Ford knew now that, metaphorically speaking, the divine light Bill put off had never been anything but optical illusions with flashlights and mirrors. But even so—even so, nothing and nobody had inspired such sublime wonder in Ford since.

During his lowest moments out in the multiverse, starving and exhausted and despairing, he'd irrationally wondered if the unimpressable depression left in Bill's wake was evidence that Bill had been truly that great, too great for a human like Ford to understand, and the shadow cast on Ford's life in Bill's absence was the natural consequence of turning away from something godlike.

Ford had gotten over that. He'd recovered, he'd grown. He understood the truth: Bill's parlor tricks had dazzled his eyes so thoroughly that now he couldn't detect the subtle glimmer of the truly wondrous. He wondered if his eyes would ever adjust to the dark again.

Whether he liked it or not, he missed the way mind-blowing awe felt. He missed being dazzled. 

There were days when he wasn't sure what he resented Bill for more: vomiting so much glittery garbage into his soul, or stopping.

####

June 2013

When Ford went looking for his briefcase to make a trip to Portland, he found it opened in the kitchen. He shouldn't have left it in the kitchen. His five-page copy of the text from a purportedly-extraterrestrial prehistoric cave painting was spread out across the table.

The mysterious, unintelligible alien text had been fully translated.

With purple crayon.

Into a second alien language.

Ford could have strangled Bill.

And what made him angriest was how excited he was over this new puzzle.

The original cave panting had consisted of hundreds of tiny symbols in an unknown language from an unknown species, painted on rock, the text faded over time. He hadn't even known whether all the symbols were recognizable as their originals. He'd suspected there'd never be a translation in his lifetime, if indeed there ever was. Bill's translation implicitly said, yes, there is a knowable translation. Said, and you can know the translation too. Said, I've made it into a fun game for you. Said, all you have to do is play along.

He would not play along.

He stuffed the papers back in his bag where they belonged, added the stack of notes he'd made for his trip, slung the briefcase over his shoulder and against his back, and went looking for his great-niece.

####

"Hey Grunkle Ford!" Mabel waved from the living room table. "Wanna play fairy chess?" She was wearing a black-and-white checkerboard-patterned sweater with a blue fairy on her chest. Apparently, this was her plan for the day.

Ford paused outside the living room. "What's 'fairy' chess?"

"It's like normal chess, but you get to decorate the chess pieces and give them weird new rules. Look! I made a princess and a unicorn!" She held up a queen piece with a yarn ponytail and a knight piece with a clay horn. "Wanna play? You can make up any kind of piece you want and I can decorate it for you! Or I can give you the rook with the dragon wings!"

Ford laughed. "That sounds fun. Where did you come up with fairy chess?"

Mabel hesitated, her smile slightly flagging.

"Ah." Of course. He would teach her made-up chess varieties. Ford cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm planning to visit Portland today. There's a weird-looking shop I saw while Soos was driving Stan and I from the airport, and I've been meaning to visit it."

"Oh." Mabel's smile wilted completely. She placed her princess and unicorn back on the chess board. "Yeah. That's fine. I could ask Dipper if he wants to play. Unless he's going with you..."

"I was actually going to ask if you'd like to come."

Mabel's head whipped toward Ford, eyes wide. "Really?"

"Sure, it seemed up your alley! I'm going to a crystal shop—"

"WHAT!" Mabel was on her feet and bounding across the room. "Shut up, I love crystals! They're like jumbo glitter for adults!"

Ford laughed. "I thought you might be interested!"

Mabel went on, "And you know those gift shops with all the shelves of glass and crystal sculptures? I love looking at those! I've always wanted to get one, but my parents think I'd break it. They're probably right."

Ford flashed back to the devastation Mabel wrought on the gift shop snow globes last summer. Well. Maybe her parents had a point, but. "You just have to be careful with it during transport! I got one of those souvenir glass statues during my roadtrip from college to Gravity Falls, and it survived all sorts of gnome invasions and eye-bat battles. I wonder where Stan put it?"

"What did it look like?"

"Mothgar." Did they still make Mothgar movies? "She's a beautiful, heroic moth—who's been radioactively mutated into a giant fire-breathing monster. I consider her one of my heroes. Her flame breath held her statue in the air."

"That sounds awesome!" Mabel bounced on her feet excitedly. "I'll be right back! I've gotta change clothes before we go." She pounded up the stairs.

Ford wondered if Mabel would like watching Mothgar, or any of the other Lizilla monster movies. He and Stan had practically grown up on those films; it would be nice to pass his love of them on to someone else in the family. Maybe she'd find them boring. It sounded like kids these days were more into computer-generated movies...

His train of thought gently derailed as he slowly became aware of a dangerous predator watching him.

He looked around—living room, kitchen, hallway, front door. Nothing. He looked up. Bill was standing in the shadows of the attic stairway landing, leaning against the corner where the stairs turned, peering down at Ford.

Ford scowled.

Bill grinned. "Crystals, huh?" There was a mocking edge to his smile. "Doesn't that sound fun. I bet she'll just love that."

That was the idea, yes. "What are you getting at, Bill."

"'Getting at'?" Bill repeated innocently. "What's there to get at? I just think it's nice of you to do something nice for her."

"Uh-huh."

"Especially after all the time you've spent favoring her brother."

There it was. And the dig struck home, too. Ford's stomach twisted. He'd never forgive himself for only confiding in Dipper about his history with Bill or the danger of the rift—and in the process, setting up Mabel to be the next one Bill tricked and exploited.

And as much as he wished he could say otherwise, he hadn't done much better in the months since then. Shortly after arriving home, Dipper had started having nightmares about Bill possessing or harassing him. When Dipper had those nightmares, usually Ford was the first person he called. He didn't want to disturb his parents or sister more than necessary, and he knew Ford kept odd hours in odd time zones and might be available at 3 a.m. California time—and most importantly, Ford had had more restless nights than he could count, waking up on strange worlds from nightmares of Bill. Ford was the only one who could understand what Dipper was going through: that unique sanity-shaking terror that came from knowing it was a dream, but still not knowing whether it was real.

Those late-night reassurance sessions and the conversations he'd had with Dipper after he calmed down had brought both of them closer. Ford was glad that when Dipper had most needed somebody, Ford was able to be that person—but he hated that in giving Dipper that support, he'd only widened the gap in the attention he gave Dipper and Mabel. 

But she had her own life, with friends and school and hobbies—so many hobbies—Dipper had told Ford, laughing, about how she'd had to juggle her parkour lessons with library craft classes—and Ford didn't have excuses to talk to Mabel the way he did Dipper, and so what could Ford do about it? (What could Ford do about it? He actually didn't know. He'd always been abysmal at socialization, even just keeping up with friends and family. And that was before he'd gone thirty years without steady human company.)

Ford had hoped he could make it up to Mabel this summer.

And then Bill happened.

He was smirking down at Ford like he knew he'd hit a bullseye.

Ford wondered how much Bill knew—if he'd assumed that the way Ford neglected Mabel last summer had continued, or if he'd had some way to spy on them over the past school year... or if she'd told him. "My family's none of your business, Bill."

Ford could almost see the gears in Bill's head turning—no doubt mentally trying out various retorts to find the most cutting—but when he spoke again, he simply changed topics. "So hey, what'd you think of that translation? Helpful at all?"

Dryly, Ford said, "You mean the one you translated into another alien language?"

"Wrong-o. I translated it into an alien writing system. It's a human language."

"What?" Ford rummaged through his briefcase for the "translated" pages. "Which language?"

"C'mon, Fords—Ford, where's the fun in just telling you? I want to see if you can figure it out yourself," Bill said. As Ford's scowl deepened, Bill added, "Give you a hint: it's a language you've studied."

A language he'd studied... Did that mean only second languages, or was English an option? No, if English was a possibility, Bill probably would have said "it's a language you know." Unless he was trying to distract Ford from the possibility it was English. He'd keep English on the list. He ought to start by counting up the number of distinct letters, if Bill had used a simple substitution cipher that might rule out some options...

He wasn't sure how long he'd been staring at the first page of the crayon translation when he heard the attic bedroom door open. Mabel came bounding downstairs in a hot pink sweater that said "YOU ROCK!" over a drum kit. "I used to have a sweater with a crystal heart on it but I think I left it in Piedmont! This'll have to do..." She slowed at the landing, giving Bill a questioning look, and then stopped when she saw Ford looking up at them. "What's up?"

Before Ford could speak up, Bill said, "I was asking Stanford about an alien translation I helped him with this morning, that's all! I don't think he's too grateful. Hey—crystal shop, right?" He beamed at Mabel. "Bring me something fun!"

Mabel beamed back. "Ok—!"

"No," Ford said.

"No," Mabel immediately repeated. "Nope! Nuh-uh, crystals are off the list of acceptable prisoner amenities."

Bill sighed deeply. "All right, fine. I guess I'll just go without the simple pleasure of a cool-looking rock in my final days."

Mabel laughed. "You're such a whiner. I'll draw you a stupid rock." She hopped down the stairs. "See you later!"

"Hey, Shooting Star," Bill said. "Stay safe out there, okay?" The way he said it like a warning, and the way Mabel immediately paused mid-step, made the hair on the back of Ford's neck stand on end. 

He held open the door, glared up at Bill, and said calmly, "We'll be back by dinner."

Bill didn't reply. He just smiled.

The moment the door shut, Mabel looked up at Ford, brows furrowed. "Sooo... what was all that about an alien translation?"

Ford showed Mabel the papers. "He rifled through my bag when I wasn't looking, put a translation in a cipher, and dared me to crack it."

"Ah!" Mabel's puzzled look evaporated. "I knew he was up to something! At least he's just being a jerk instead of a supervillain." She laughed.

Ford smiled in relief. He hadn't lost her yet. "This time, anyway."

"This time!"

As they walked around the shack to Stan's car, Mabel tentatively took Ford's hand. He squeezed hers back just a little too tight.

####

Part of Mabel was nervous to hang out with Ford—just Ford, without Dipper or Stan there as well. He loved her, of course—she knew he loved her, and she loved him—but they didn't simply hang out. Last summer, she'd usually been the one to talk to him first, and they rarely spoke over the school year unless it was part of a family call. She got it—last summer he'd been busy with Bill stuff, during the school year he'd been busy with adventuring, and this summer he was busy with Bill stuff again—and Ford and Dipper had more in common to talk about—so it was fine, really. She understood. But even so, being alone with him kinda made her feel like she was in trouble.

But she'd had nothing to worry about. As they hit the road, there'd been a few minutes of awkward small talk—the kinds of questions adults always asked kids when they couldn't think to ask anything else, so, what kinds of classes are you taking next year—but once they hit common ground the conversation got rolling. Mabel had agonized over whether to join the yearbook or take art class, since she only had room in her electives for one, and had finally settled on art; Ford revealed that one year in high school he'd only taken biology and physics and passed up chemistry so that he could take an art class, had kicked himself over it when taking college chemistry courses, but now decades later he was glad he'd made the effort to preserve his artistic side even as he cultivated his scientific mind. Somehow, even though she'd spent all summer looking over Dipper's shoulder at Ford's illustrations in Journal 3, it had never quite dawned on her that being a scientist didn't mean Ford wasn't also an artist.

They talked about their preferred drawing tools—Ford liked the precision and detail of pencils and pens, while Mabel preferred the smooth drawing experience, vibrant hues, and color-blending potential of crayons. They talked about what they liked drawing—Ford typically drew from life, but said he greatly admired Mabel's creative imagination. Ford talked about blueprints and engineering diagrams like they were artwork, talked about protractors and compasses and rulers like they were art tools; and Mabel figured that blueprints were like very angular versions of the intricate star, swirl, and squiggle patterns she liked filling page margins with, so maybe that was a kind of art. They agreed that the greatest artistic masters of the modern age were the people who made those crazy paintings for the covers of fantasy paperback novels. They both couldn't stand watercolor painting and didn't understand how people could control the paint well enough to make it look good, rather than just sort of leak faintly-colored puddles around the page—although Mabel, at least, was willing to give watercolors another shot.

And from artwork they moved on to talking about Mabel's hopes for high school and Ford's memories of that time—the good and the bad. (Ford asked Mabel to have mercy if the class nerd ever awkwardly attempted to flirt with her at a school dance; she could tell the nerd "no" if she wanted, just please don't pour punch all over his suit.) And then they talked about music (they were surprised at how many synth-poppy new-wavy favorites they had in common, and Mabel was heartbroken to learn how much of the 80s he still had to catch up on), and then about all the new technology Mabel thought Ford had probably missed out on and the equivalent technology he'd encountered out in the multiverse, and then some of the adventures he'd had and people he'd met out in other dimensions...

And Mabel kept expecting Bill to come up, but he never did.

The hour drive from Gravity Falls to the outskirts of Portland consisted mostly of wide flat roads self-consciously hustling through forests, as if the cars were embarrassed visitors who'd stepped into the wrong room. Low wooden buildings clustered together in twos and threes beneath the trees like dogs sitting at their owners' feet. The occasional A-frame house peered curiously down at the road through the pines and firs. Mabel peered curiously back.

In the distance, hazy blue mountains bristling with trees tried to bite the sky. Sometimes, Mabel could imagine an X-shaped rip in the sky vomiting colors onto a distant mountain. Not for the first time, she wondered what Weirdmageddon had looked like from outside Roadkill County. She'd searched online, but never found any pictures.

They passed a bright red shop with dozens of wood-carved statues of bears and Bigfoot in the parking lot, and a cute little white house with a metal sculpture of an ostrich sitting in the front yard, and a teeny tiny shack next to a chop-your-own-Christmas-tree farm—"You hack it, we'll pack it". Seeing a gas station beside a trailer-sized drive-thru coffee shop felt like stumbling upon a carnival. Eventually, the trees peeled back to reveal a strip of colorful but run-down local shops lining either side of Route 26; which bloomed into a proper small town, houses painted cloud white and sky blue on one side of the road, a hunter green motel-style apartment building on the other side, though Mabel could always see the trees waiting just a few streets beyond the main road; and then another small town, which beat the trees back even further; and then their surroundings gently became the suburban outskirts of Portland as they got on the highway.

"The crystal shop was somewhere on the north side of the highway," Ford said, gesturing to the right. So far, all that had gone by on the right had been trees, warehouses, and distant clusters of houses. "I didn't get a long look at it, but it had some mystical-sounding name and it was in a row of storefronts with a pole sign next to the highway. The sign had a cutout in the middle for a stained glass window shaped like a diamond."

"Oooh, fancy."

"And very distinctive. We should have no trouble finding the place again."

The highway ran elevated above the homes and businesses below. After a few miles, a railroad wove up alongside the highway. Ford glanced at the railroad with a puzzled frown. Mabel asked, "Should we have passed it by now?"

"I'm... not sure. I thought we would have—when we were traveling the other direction, I seem to remember I didn't see it long before we exited the highway—but..." He trailed off. "We can't possibly have missed it. That sign stood out like a sore, bejeweled thumb."

Mabel made a mental note to try bedazzling her fingernails. "Are you sure it was on this side of the highway?"

"Positive. I saw it to my left as we were traveling east and considering asking Soos and Stan if they'd mind exiting the highway to visit it, but I decided that would take too much time since it was on the wrong side of the highway and we'd have to do a U-turn. So now it should be on our side of the highway." He gestured demonstratively to the right. "I'm sure of it."

"Okay." Mabel propped her chin in her hand and stared out the window again. A wall of concrete and trees rose up along the right side of the highway, and Ford's frown deepened.

When they reached the exit for the airport, Mabel finally had to admit to herself that there probably was no crystal shop.

Her stomach flip-flopped as Ford silently exited the highway, pulled into a strip mall parking lot, and parked. He stared out the windshield, frowning in deep thought, staring into the distance.

This is it, Mabel thought, ankles twisting together, fingers digging into the bench seat cushion.

Ford said, "We can't have missed the shop. That sign was taller than anything in the area. We couldn't have overlooked it if we'd tried."

Mabel's stomach slowly de-flipped. "Maybe they closed?" she suggested. "Or maybe something knocked the sign down!" In the week and a half since Ford had last come this way.

"Maybe," Ford said dubiously.

Mabel pulled out her phone to search for Portland crystal shops and rock shops. "There's some shops in town, but I... don't see any up here? Maybe they closed years ago and only just took the sign down?"

"Hmm. It seems unlikely, but... I don't know what else could have happened." He glanced at Mabel's phone. "What are you looking at? Do you have the yellow pages in there?"

"Um..." Mabel shrugged. "Kinda?"

Ford sighed. "Well, if we can't find the crystal shop I saw, I suppose we could visit another one. I did promise you crystals. Can you give me directions with that thing?"

Mabel gave him a hesitant, thoughtful look; but then she nodded, grinned, and said, "Sure! You drive, I'll navigate! This'll be easy!"

####

They missed the store four times.

####

The store Mabel had dug up was a general magic shop named Lunar Blessings, on the ground level of a mixed-use building. It was surrounded by apartments up above, a beauty salon to the left, and a tax preparation service to the right. They carefully stowed Stan's car in the parking garage.

"For my thirtieth birthday, I made a trip to Portland and got a cake at a bakery that used to be on this block," Ford said, looking up at the compact brick-like building that now filled the block. "It must have gone out of business." So many little things had changed.

Mabel was treating the sidewalk like a huge hopscotch board as they approached the magic shop, taking huge leaps between each concrete square. As the storefront came into sight, she said, "You know those souvenir shops with trays of polished rocks and little bags you can fill up?"

"The little brown suede bags? Yes, I've seen those. I think they're terrific gifts for young fans of geology." He probably would have gotten one himself as a child, but he hadn't started seeing them until adulthood.

"I have like eight of those bags!" Mabel declared. "I collect them whenever I can! Last summer I tried to talk Grunkle Stan into adding them to the Mystery Shack, but he said they were too easy to shoplift. He let me buy a fake gold nugget for half price, though!" She looked up at Ford hopefully. "A store full of crystals probably has something like that, right? Or at least a few cheap small rocks? Those bags are only, like, five dollars."

Solemnly, Ford said, "Your shopping budget is fifty dollars."

Mabel stumbled her last jump and almost fell. "What! Are you serious!"

"I've been in places like this before. These days you can't get anything decent for five dollars." He offered her a half smile. "Anyway, I missed out on thirty years of spoiling my nephew and my great-niece and great-nephew. I've got to make up for lost time."

Mabel flung her arms around Ford—"Thank you thank you thank you!"—and flung open the store door. "Rockmongers! Show me to your biggest, fanciest crystals! You've got a big spender in the house!" The door swung shut.

By the time Ford made it in, Mabel was saying, somewhat sheepishly, "Show me to your second fanciest crystals." Ford spied her next to an amethyst geode almost as tall as she was and hurried over.

Mabel took his hand and whispered, "You weren't kidding. Fifty dollars doesn't take you far in this place."

Ford grinned. "Funny, isn't it? Considering that you can just dig this stuff out of the ground."

Mabel nodded. "Like potatoes."

Like potatoes. Ford couldn't believe he'd missed out on thirteen years of this kid.

####

The shop boasted books on metaphysics and magic spells; sculptures depicting an undifferentiated mix of global religious figures and fantasy creatures; fake dream catchers with plastic beads and neon-dyed feathers; shelves stuffed with herbs, incense, tarot cards, and more; and most importantly of all: crystals, crystals, rocks, and crystals. Raw stones, polished tumbled stones, carved into figurines and mystical shapes, arranged by rock type in roughly rainbow order around the walls.

It was the kind of place where, once upon a time, Ford would have eagerly spent half an afternoon, browsing the books for something intellectually stimulating amidst the rows of hokey hocus-pocus, scoffing at the promised protections listed on the cards by each type of crystal but still glancing over the crystals themselves for something that might look pleasant on his desk. Not a believer in the melting pot of New Age beliefs being peddled, but still acknowledging he'd dedicated his life to seeking the same things people sought in shops like this.

He was beginning to wonder if he'd ever feel comfortable in a magic shop again. 

He'd hardly been in the shop a minute before he saw a gold-foiled pyramid with an Eye of Horus on the side. And then small pyramids constructed out of seven layers of stone, forming an inverted rainbow from purple down to red. "Divine Eye"-brand incense sticks with a brown logo stamped onto each package depicting an uncannily realistic eye on a pyramid. Milky translucent selenite pyramids. Multiple different tarot decks—simple woodcut designs, complex oil paintings, punkish collage art—that featured an eye in a triangle somewhere on the box art. Shiny black pyramids with copper coils wrapped around them. A poster with a psychedelic Eye of Providence. Pyramids in a dozen other colors and stones. With so many hostile triangles around, even the familiar, watchful nazar and eyed hamsa amulets now seemed to stare at him too hard.

It was almost a relief when Ford spotted, between sculptures of Shiva and a severe-looking angel, one sculpture that was unmistakeably Bill himself. He was seated with his legs in lotus position, "floating" by attaching to a wall of flames behind him, with two blue glass flames in his hands. Anything else in this shop left Ford with the nervous uncertainty of whether the artist had been depicting Bill, or just an innocuous Eye of Providence symbol a hundred generations removed from its initial inspiration. But this sculpture, down to the hat and bow tie, left no doubt.

Ford reminded himself that it shouldn't be a comfort to see Bill's face; and he didn't like that he had to remind himself.

He gingerly pictured up the sculpture, surprised at how light it was, and inspected the bottom. It had a logo stamped on it that matched the logo on sculptures of at least a dozen other less malevolent entities in the store; the shop had probably bought them en masse and wasn't affiliated with Bill. But somewhere out there was an artist who was. Ford wondered where they were.

####

"Grunkle Ford!" Mabel bounded up to him, grinning. 

Ford flinched when his name was called and turned away from the shelf he'd been inspecting a little too fast, like he'd been caught doing something wrong—but he gave her his full, polite attention. "Yes?"

"Look what I found in the window! It makes rainbows when the sunlight hits it! Like a prism-pyramid! A prismid! A pyrismid?" She shrugged. "Anyway, isn't it awesome! Free rainbows, everywhere, forever!" She beamed at Ford, holding her clear glass pyramid up for him to inspect; but when she saw the look on his face, she slowly lowered it. "What's wrong?"

Ford forced a tense smile. "Oh, it's... I'm sorry, Mabel. You're right, it is very impressive. But—" He winced, glancing away, voice dropping, "Bill happens to be fond of those, too. I used to have—dozens of those."

Mabel's cheeks heated up. "Oh." Now that she thought back, she distantly recalled seeing a similar pyramid in the room with the switcheroo carpet, although she'd never seen it in the sunlight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Sorry. I can put it back. I saw some pink cats and these resin hearts filled with gold flakes? They were cute."

It took Ford a second to speak; Mabel wasn't sure he'd even heard what she'd said. "He didn't put the idea of getting one of these in your head, did he?"

"What? No!" Mabel said. "Of course not! When would he have even brought it up?"

"You... have been spending a lot of time around him lately."

"Pffft!" Mabel rolled her eyes. "Like when?"

####

"Okay," Stan called from the kitchen, a tray of raw burgers in front of him, "ready to start grilling! How does everyone want their burgers? Your options are 'medium rare' and 'overcooked.'"

Mabel stuck her head in the kitchen. "I want mine with sprinkles mixed in!"

Stan grimaced. "Sweetie, that sounds awful—"

Bill stuck his head in over Mabel's. "I want sprinkles too."

"I'm not making you a burger!"

Mabel chanted, "Sprinkles, sprinkles—" and Bill joined in, "—sprinkles, sprinkles, sprinkles—!"

####

Mabel pointed at one of the cartoon animal drawings on the blackboard. "And the orange one is...?"

Bill, sitting on the living room floor with a notepad and a yellow pencil, raised his hand, even though he was Mabel's only audience. "Teddy Tender!"

"And his job is...?"

"Healing! Uh—doctoring and social reconciliation! He's like a therapist medic."

"Correct! Full points!"

"Yes!"

"And the indigo one?"

Bill squinted at the fishy-looking creature. "The Mystic Dolphin."

"Close enough, I'll give it to you! Misty the Dolphin. Her job?"

Bill frowned. "Psychic powers."

"No."

"Purple has psychic powers."

"No!"

"Who has psychic powers, then!"

"Nobody has psychic powers, man, we've been over this!"

Bill groaned. "Is Misty going to be on the test?"

"Of course she is! We can't just skip over Misty! Indigo gets shortchanged in artistic depictions of rainbows enough as it is!"

"Misty is stupid! She can't even visit the rest of the critters!" Bill chucked his notebook at the blackboard. It smacked it harmlessly and flopped to the floor.

Mabel gave him a stern look. "You'll never grasp the deeper thematic concepts in Color Critters if you can't see that Misty's an equal part of the team regardless of her handicaps."

Bill groaned again.

####

"Hey dudes," Soos said, opening the attic door. "Do you know where my laundry went? I can't find my green t-shirt, and—"

Mabel was wearing Soos's green t-shirt, which went down to her calves like a loose dress. Bill was hot glueing construction paper flowers all over the shirt.

Arms outstretched in a T shape, Mabel said, "I'm the flower queen."

"She's the flower queen," Bill said.

Soos looked between them both, flashed Mabel a double thumbs up, said, "You look beautiful, dawg," and shut the door.

####

Mabel kicked a foot sheepishly. "I haven't been spending that much time with him."

"That was all in the last three days," Ford said.

Mabel winced. "Okay, fine—but—it's all been harmless stuff! Nothing Bill can use to conquer the world or anything! I'm not even letting him use the scissors! And I promise he's not doing anything evil under my supervision. He's actually been really well behaved—"

"That's exactly what worries me!" Ford snapped. He sighed harshly. "Mabel—I'm not surprised he's treating you decently. It's what I expected. I... I've actually been meaning to talk to you about this for a few days."

Mabel immediately went cold. Stay safe out there, okay? "Oh. Yeah?"

"I understand you're just trying to be kind, but considering who we're dealing with here—and how willing he is to exploit and abuse even our best virtues—I'm worried you're not being careful enough around him."

Mabel was never careful enough, was she? Not even careful enough to be trusted with a snow globe, much less anything important. Voice thick, she asked, "Is that why we're here?" She gestured around the magic shop.

Ford hesitated just long enough to give her her answer. "I... didn't think this was a conversation we should have inside the shack."

Mabel looked down at her hands, saw the stupid glass pyramid, and nearly flung it on the floor in frustration. Instead, she set it on the nearest shelf. Don't break anything. Under her breath, she muttered, "Bill said you'd do something like this."

"Bill said? Bill said?! Of course he would, that's just like him. What kind of nonsense has he been filling your head with?"

####

"Honestly, I'm surprised Ford hasn't said anything about you talking to me yet," Bill said, carefully taping construction paper petals together into flowers. "But mark my words—if he's taken this long, it's only because he's waiting for an opportunity to scold you where I can't overhear. He'll probably lure you out somewhere fun—go to the zoo or something. Then he'll let you have it."

"Pfff, come on!" Mabel focused on cutting out the next few flower petals. "He wouldn't 'let me have it.' If it bothered him that much, he'd have said so by now."

"You, my friend, have never seen him get really mad. I have. For the sake of argument, maybe I deserved it, fine—but he's got a tendency to aim that hate at anybody I'm friends with, too. So don't think you're safe."

Mabel paused, then shook her head. "No." She threw another bunch of petals at Bill to tape together. "He wouldn't hate me. We're family."

"If you were your brother, I'd agree with you. As it is, though..." Bill dumped a half dozen finished flowers in Mabel's lap. "Honestly, I can't even tell how he feels about you. Can you?"

####

Mabel flinched. "Obviously what he's filling my head with isn't nonsense, because he was right! You took me all the way to Portland by promising a stupid crystal shop that doesn't exist—"

"What?! Mabel, that's ridiculous! Just listen to m—"

"Why are you yelling! Why are you mad at me, I was only trying to be nice to him!" She let out a sob. "I didn't do anything wrong this time!"

Ford froze. "Mabel..."

She ran out of the crystal shop, crying. Ford watched her go, paralyzed. Mad at her? He was mad at Bill, if anybody. Mad at her?

He turned helplessly toward the shopkeeper, as if the only other adult in the store could help him out. "I'm... sorry for the disturbance." 

The shopkeeper shrugged her shoulder in vague sympathy. "She upset over some guy?"

"Not that way." Thank goodness for that. "She's just..." He sighed. "She's been making friends with a very bad influence."

####

The entire crystal shop trip was initially one super long chapter that I cut in two. They would have been about equal length if I'd ended this chapter after Ford saw the Bill statue. I decided not to do that. I did that to be mean. ♡

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #grunkle ford #(he's not in the art but he's costar of this chapter) #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

[incomingalbatross]

Revolving the AU where Stan doesn't escape the cops in NWHS, Soos and the kids find the portal, but things go sideways differently than in canon and Soos ends up sailing through into the Nightmare Realm. Ford has to call off his suicide mission to haul this strange gopher-man to safety and then they roam the multiverse together.

Highlights:

Soos sees his face and blurts out "Mr. Pines's secret twin brother? I thought I made you up!"

Ford giving his version of their childhoods and Soos politely being like "that doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about Mr. Pines's tragic backstory to dispute it"

Ford going "what do you MEAN Stanley didn't move on and live the flourishing normal life I've been visualizing for him for the past thirty years?? How dare he"

...By the time they get home Ford is much more prepared to not punch his brother in the face. Thank you, Soos.

(Don't ask me what Stan and the kids are doing in the meantime, I still haven't figured out a way to not make this terrible for them)

#removing Stan from the room during the portal activation is honestly the best I've done for him so far #gravity falls

[ballsbalb]

NO BALLS DON’T STAN DEPAY HE DEFENDED M*NDY NOOOOOO

okay this is gonna be controversial but please hear me out—

i 100% agree that mendy is most likely guilty, but he wasn’t found guilty or convicted, which- while it doesn’t prove innocence in any way at all whatsoever- is the end all be all of guilt in the eyes of many.

it’s like how the NBA reacted to the Kyrie Irving situation, where guys like lebron and others werent necessarily defending him but were drawing parallels to other situations in response. there’s this idea that it’s the players against the media, the players vs the world that wants them to fail.

so, when someone uninformed on the situation sees that someone wasn’t found guilty in his profession and his similar circumstances, the first reaction will be to go on the defensive. it’s wrong, yes, and he should not have made the statement that he did.

i don’t think memphis is a bad person per se, and i do not believe that you can fully judge one person on one action- even if that action is defending a likely (almost certain) rapist, because i do not believe based on the statements itself that he was very well versed on the full scope of the situation. the statement was, mostly, ‘who helps this brother heal now?’ as opposed to, ‘when will we prosecute these lying whores??’

i believe what he saw was someone who looked like him, who came from a situation like him, and who was accused of something terrible- and when he was found not to be guilty, his knee-jerk reaction was ‘wow, i can’t believe the media is out to get us.’ because, historically, black men have been heavily prosecuted for crimes- especially rape- that they didn’t commit. (which was NOT the situation with Mendy, however for someone without all the facts- like Memphis- he may believe it to be so.)

i dunno. i just feel like there’s more nuance to it all, you know? it just feels like he wasn’t as much defending a rapist as he was trying to say ‘the media’s out to get us, we need to stick together, look how easily a career can be destroyed’— even if I personally do believe mendy is guilty and should be rotting in prison.

fuck, almost forgot- his childhood is a fucking nightmare. it’s a long story and you can find it online, but essentially he was constantly beaten by his mom’s boyfriend’s kids, and was dealing drugs by the age of twelve. he was expelled from school several times, and dealt with the cops a lot, including watching his best friend being wrongfully arrested. i believe all of this would lead him to a distrust of the system, the media, and authority (like the legal system.)

no hate at all to anyone saying ‘fuck memphis, rapist sympathizer’— because that’s fair, and it’s not my place to decide how other people react to things, but i, in my personal view of everything, just feel like there might be more nuance to it, and once you dig a bit deeper, the guy had a shit life that i believe directly impacted his outlook on many things.

#rant #but not an angry rant #just an explainer rant #memphis depay

[gun--arm]

just in terms of analysis of the dyne scene & all that jazz; i've seen a LOT of interpretations of the barret / dyne fight + ending and i feel mixed on them. while i love analysis and agree with a lot of it - there are things i both like / dislike about those analysis and i wanted to talk about.

obviously, im an og stan. i loved the original dyne segment. dyne is a mass murderer at this point, killing indiscriminately because he literally wants to watch the world burn. he's so angry from grief and vengeance that he's taken the whole 'dig two graves' to an extreme - digging multiple! in the original, when confronted by barret; he reveals his resentment for the world and everyone in it ( all of them deserving death ) and before the fight, upon learning marlene is alive - suggests he'll kill her to reunite her with her mother. this is basically the catalyst for barret and him to fight. dyne is a death seeker, we see here, but too afraid to kill himself ( possibly too depressed but also too furious to act on his own suicidal feelings ). after the battle with barret and essentially what is - his once close friend - granting his wish of death on him, dyne announces he could never be a father to marlene again before he kills himself. his whole 'my hands are too stained' are because he's murdered so many innocents, what kind of father could he be now?

now - i've seen a lot of people dunk on rebirth for their handling of dyne. and i am the first person to critique the remake universe. trust me, i diss that shit a lot ( lol ). however...i actually love the dyne content and here's why;

firstly, the insight of dyne being much more unhinged / hallucinating / losing his humanity shown here. with modern graphics, we can see the subtleties in facial expressions / body movements. the voice acting between barret & dyne is absolutely stellar.

we see dyne talking as if eleanor / marlene are with him; he's almost spitting at barret in resentment, but you can also hear that familiarity as if he's close to giving his friend a chance. then he sees cloud - and sees red.

i love his totally discriminate view of the shinra; he hates them all, no exception and WILL shoot on sight. i love that when dyne speaks, he comes off as genuinly unhinged / insane. this isn't someone who can be reasoned with - he has gone overboard ten-fold. of course, during the fight - he shows some snippets of humanity / reality - but he has to be challenged to get there.

now, i know one thing people hated in his fight, is the way his arm kind of mutates (?). he goes all tetsuo iron man or tetsuo re akira here ( lol ). when it happened in game, i was a big ol ?????????? because it feels random and weird BUT ALSO -

what if he's just fucked up from mako, or the life-stream? what if shinra did MORE than just destroy his town? we see the suggestion of mako making monsters so why is it a far reach for it to have effected him? personally, i quite liked the addition of this insane boss twist. i especially like barret's response; as if he's having a nightmare. he slaps his face to keep himself awake - he doesn't want to believe his friend is a monster. as my partner always quotes; 'it's a metaphor' lol.

as for the next part i've seen people critique - it's when dyne decides to go 'suicide by cop' rather than jump from the cliff edge himself. i've seen people say that this is like he's had his choice of suicide 'robbed' from him, it's as if he's not died with dignity but instead by shinra troop. personally, i do not see it this way.

dyne dies willingly - he protects barret and chooses to stand in the line of fire in the hopes of dying. he hasn't been able to take his own life, keeping in line with his fear ( especially so after hearing marlene is alive ) but he goes out as he wants to; he gets his wish of finally dying.

the main two things i do not like about this scene is - 1. him dying atop barret and proclaiming he bare the weight of his guilt. that's a lil too on the nose for me; they could have done this without the dialogue. 2. the immediate shift in tone after the fight with dio / palmer etc.

two things i especially loved about this entire scene;

dyne desperately wiping his hands on himself.

2.the way he SNATCHES marlene's pic from barret.

#(analysis.) #im just waffling |: #ffviirebirth spoilers

[blueiight]

amc iwtv ep2 w K&Y

the marius painting… THE GROAN…. HELLO… i need this penthouse to be like a nightmare maze in szn2 . things quoted will be K

“WOW LOOK HOW STRONG HE (lestat) IS. FUCK HE NEED A WHEELBAROW FOR?” me: girl he just lazy

“hes (louis) high?” the fake heavenly image of lestat as satan framed by the streetlights .. the angel of death rising under the moon… LESTATS BLOOD WAS GIGGLING INSIDE ME mmmhm ik dat dick sum srs ha

“he (lestat) talkin bout ppl like they meat!”

“is he (louis) gone attack privileged white people?” i said girl i aint gone say yes or no

“bougie ass eating blood with a spoon.”

wait just realized louis did his first kill had a panic attack & ran outside right after😂😂then lestat wan use that as a teachable moment like. & not to mention lestat even in ep2 tryna be daddy n shit likeee i got all the money u need hello. 😭😂

lestat recognizing how my city is TO THIS DAY cops dont give no fucks. tourists fuckin round… also not them being NAKED THE FIRST TIME IN THE COFFIN HELLO

this poor fox omg… he would 100% eat my baby chuchu 💔💔

our book must be a WARNING.. ldpdl and the just say no! DARE campaign of the 2020s

U GONE MAKE ME BEG? Yes Louis I WILL. also louis saying mm me & u we gone have to communicate , just like the meat…. (ALSO LESTAT TELLING LOUIS WE WILL BREAK U OF THIS COMPASSION FOR HUMANS? BREAK?? OF ??.. ik the hoteps would say this an example of Buckbreaking✌🏾✌🏾)

louis never went so far to hear grace’s heartbeat to read her mind cuz he heard what mrs. florence thought looking at him & was too scared to hear what his sister thought… but hey she’s having TWINS!

THE NPC IRISH DUDE CALLING LOUIS BOY. I WILL KILL HIM TWICE. SHE SAID THIS SCENE WENT VIRAL ON TWT OF LOUIS COMNENTING BLACK MEN WHO USE THEIR WEAKNESS TO RISE & THE DABBLE IN FUCKERY IS WHAT MADE HER WANNA WATCH (but also louis saying he was a “black man who uses his weakness” … a weakness to covet power, to get on ahead in white society…)

“chemistry!” she snaps as she loops lestat & louis arguing at the incinerator three times , we got one…

“see this is gonna be one of the things lestat just dont get in their relationship he used the ‘primitive country’ line to trap him in now hes acting brand new about race.” put down the tumblr meta’s gang she got us

“if disrespect was done to u id kill myself? how can i say no to you? awww lestat. how romantic” SHED 100% FOLD💔

1912-1917 was louis wilt chamberlain days. statpadding for the seedy side of society, choking on the big stage (his relationship w his family gradually falling to pieces, and louis in the eyes of society as jim crow regulations creep on in)

“OH LAWD HE GONE BITE THE BABY?” then she got confused over the fact that 5 years passed so soon maybe we needed some more eps @amc lolz

“i always wanted to be a vampire when i was young but i see the problems with it now!“ 😂😂😂😂

LMAOOOOO LOUIS PIVOTING FROM DEFENSIVENESS TO CHOMPING ON DAMEK. THE PLEASURE OF THE LIL DRINK. BRINGING DAMEK TO HIS KNEES. LIKEEEEEEEE???? HELLO. THEY GET FREAKY IN THIS PENTHOUSE OK

shes of the belief that louis did NOT eat the baby gang.

LESTAT SAYING SPARE THE FAMILY ALL THE PAIN NIGGA U TURNED UR OWN MAMA…🆗🆒

louis saying ‘sound like trash to me’ is a perfect accent moment here lolol.

Ok shes in love w lestat& im like about to pass out.

the sheer emotional whiplash of going from DID I KILL MY NEPHEW I WONT EVER BE A PARENT 💔 to romantic & shameless dickmatazion slash pontification over lestat as lestat in said flashback waxes poetry over the sheer depression of being a vampire as he says how louis take this feeling of loneliness from him. . my sister topping it off by saying “ouuu romance”

“lestat said if ur not gone sing it right dont sing it at all” ALSO LESTAT SAYING THEY PULING TALENT FROM GAS STATIONS. modern lestat need to be scrapping on stan twt over his utter disgust w regard to music . hes on spaces saying do u know my name? aggressively like shadow v. kd on spaces in 2021

“He’s (Lestat) really fucking crazy!“

This poor soul was someones son… brother.. & he was to be butchered for what? an offending note? [Lestat] Removed a lifetime of confidence & joy in less than half an hour. 1) idiots not only seen the way lestat hunted louis in ep1, ep2 watched lestat torture this poor person , click out on louis for saying that its torture & got surprised that ep5 happened? CTE fanbase indeed also 2) my dummy dummy dummy hc that what lestat would consider ‘evil’ people to eat would b ppl who do v benign but personally offensable things to lestat like having bad singing voices is CANON amc wise😭😭

LESTAT WAS AN ARTIST IN BRINGING DEATH. louis waxing poetry over this scene of horror, watching this entire man’s life… they both crazy. He had a way about him and I was still, very much under that power. afraid not to disappoint… lestat is ur daddy in more than 1 sense huh.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS HOMOEROTICISM” referring to lestat& louis sharing the poor poor tenor. she not homophobic she in a homosexual rigmarole rn my friends

Alice (daniel 1st wife) dying her eyebrow back brown despite half of it being brown is just like louis in the 1910s using conk—[THIS USER BEEN SHOT]

“Aww Daniel & Louis coming to an understanding here. See Louis is a good guy. he got took advantage of by that SEXY ASS WHITE MAN-“ She still got a lil bit of CTE but we will fix it🤎

#yn. #iwtv #iwtv with K&Y

[princess-unipeg]

Mabel Pines did learn her lesson

I know some fans have complained that Mabel made Weirdmaggedon happen and didn’t suffer the consequences of her actions. But the thing is Mabel was one of many Bill made deals with to cause the events to happen. Mabel was oblivious that it was Bill and wasn’t told about the rift. She wouldn’t have made the deal if she knew that it was him.

She woke up in a dreamscape and had no memory of the encounter. The bubble got her everything she wanted even before she asked. Which was probably how Dippy Fresh came to be. Mabel had to leave the bubble to truly realize the horror her selfish wish caused.

Once she realizes how dire the situation was, Mabel was willing to fight back against Bill and his nightmare party guests. Unlike a certain Time cop who was quick to escape as soon as his backup got fried by Bill.

Mabel did everything she could to fight against Bill and as soon as Stan sacrificed his mind to save everyone, everything was restored.

This was the face of someone who knew messed up big time.

She knew that it was because of her selfish desires that Grunkle Stan was nearly lost to them. Mabel’s wish for an endless summer of never growing up cost Stan his memories of everyone who loved him. Even her.

But thanks to certain jogs to the memory Stan could be brought back and Mabel , along with the rest of the family helped restore him to the Stan they knew.

At the end of the summer when it was time to leave, Mabel has shown maturity by accepting she couldn’t just shrink the whole town and bring them back to Piedmont with her. Even if it was possible. Mabel decides to just accept the signatures of the townsfolk and move on to new experiences and adventures.

#my post #my posts #thoughts #my thoughts #gravity falls #disney gravity falls #Disneys gravity falls #Disney’s gravity falls #weirdmageddon

[mechidraws]

was scrolling through some of your nightmare cops at work and i love it sm! .. you think you could draw some more Jason tho? 👀

god. I haven’t drawn nightmare cops in so long, I would like to drawn them again ngl

Im still waiting for a release date of some kind, I need to see Stan’s tiddies in full action

[turtlethon]

“Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko”

Season 5, Episode 5 First US Airdate: September 14, 1991

Mikey returns to where the Turtles were mutated and encounters a half-boy, half-lizard.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season five continues with “Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko”. This is the only episode of the series written by Gary Greenfield, and aired as the second half of a double-bill with “My Brother, the Bad Guy”.

After Michaelangelo wakes the other Turtles due to a recurring nightmare, Splinter steps in. Using a medallion to place his student in a deep sleep, he has Mikey recount his dream’s events. We flash back to the fateful moment when a boy carrying a bowl containing the four Turtles would trip, leading them to fall through a grate into the sewers. We originally saw these events unfold all the way back in the very first episode of the show, “Turtle Tracks”, though this retelling of their origin is done with entirely new footage.

Eagle-eyed viewers of the show will notice that this version soon diverges from what we saw in season one. Here, the Turtles land in the mutagen immediately, whereas the original story had Hamato Yoshi find them and discover they had wandered into a puddle of mutagen later. Note, too, that mutagen was originally a pink/purple colour. Beginning with season four, the show adopted green as the standard colour for the ooze, in line with its usual depiction in other TMNT media, and so that’s how it appears here.

Michaelangelo remembers seeing a baby lizard emerge from the cracks between the bricks of the sewer walls and join the Turtles in the mutagen. It’s seen being picked up by a shadowy man with a large collar. Mikey screams in terror, despite never being in any danger and not knowing the lizard; I guess the idea here is that the mystery man was just that scary.

Raphael is his typical wry self and doesn’t put much stock in Mikey’s dream. Splinter suggests that it might not be as fanciful as it seems, and that “what seems to be fantasy often proves to be reality”. This is the second episode in a row that’s opened with Splinter’s supposed wise teachings being the most obvious, redundant platitudes: sometimes people don’t believe things that turn out to be true, no shit.

A fun gag follows where Leo, Donnie and Raph all complain that they’re never going to be able to get back to sleep now, before immediately all being out like a light. Michaelangelo is still up, however, and is fixated on learning more about what happened. He leaves the confines of the Lair, spending hours wandering around trying to solve this mystery. Eventually Mikey winds up standing beneath a grate that he’s convinced was the one from his dream, and logically, given the amount of time that has passed, that should be the end of it. For the purposes of the story, however, we continue.

Above ground, three hoodlums are seen robbing a bank: the quiff-sporting Sluggo, plus-sized crook Basher and a third individual in a long, hooded coat. Mikey confronts the trio, and as he has no weapons of any practical use nowadays – his character model doesn’t even include his nunchucks anymore, following their gradual phasing out last season – all he can do is charge at Basher, bouncing off his belly and flying into a nearby wall. He then gets hurled into a trash can, which is kicked downhill. I’ve never seen any of the Turtles get their ass handed to them by some random unarmed guy in this manner; this is truly a new low.

April and Stan arrive at the bank to cover the robbery. Our ace reporter interviews the Chief of Police, and as is so often the case in TMNT, the cops are entirely incapable of providing assistance and clueless as to what is going on. The Chief reveals he knows nothing about the robbery, and only happened to be on the scene as he was depositing his paycheck.

We briefly check in with the other Turtles, who muse over breakfast as to where Michaelangelo has wandered off to. Elsewhere in the sewers, Mikey has another encounter with the hooded robber, who rides a skateboard through the tunnels while carrying the standard cartoon sack of money (sans dollar sign). The thief winds up skating into an area that’s a dead end, and with his back literally against the wall is forced to reveal his true identity as Mondo Gecko, a mutant lizard.

Act two opens with Mondo Gecko using his tail attack, before turning Michaelangelo’s grappling hook against him, tying the Turtle up on a sewer pipe – his second humiliating defeat in the space of a single morning. The mutant gecko escapes, but Mikey is able to follow him thanks to the tracks left by his skateboard. Playing spy, he sneaks around a run-down warehouse and sees Mondo, Basher and Sluggo checking in via radio with their boss, the mysterious villain “Mr. X”. The trio are given instructions for their next raid, this time of a military truck that will be carrying a new and “devastating” explosive device. Mr. X explains that his plan is to only return the invention in exchange for an astronomical sum of money.

When Basher and Sluggo briefly exit the room to retrieve some dynamite for the mission, Michaelangelo steps in to confront Mondo Gecko again. This backfires when the other two crooks return, and Mikey soon suffers his third defeat of the day, this time getting thrown in a net for his efforts. He’s about to be fed to an improbable pool of sharks installed in the warehouse, but Mondo has second thoughts, suggesting that they should take him to be punished my Mr. X directly instead.

A still-restrained Michaelangelo is left in the back of a pick-up truck while the three hoodlums carry out their plan, knocking a tree onto the road and forcing the military convoy to halt. Mondo, Sluggo and Basher hijack the military truck containing the explosive device, hurling Mikey in the trailer and driving off to Mr. X’s hideout.

Mikey is able to use his Turtlecom to make initial contact with the Turtles, but Basher steps in to destroy it before he can relay his location. April is also on the scene, riding a news cycle as she covers the robbery of the truck for Channel 6. Leonardo asks her to steer clear of the situation due to the danger involved. April agrees, only to immediately turn around and follow the truck anyway: she’s not about to let go of such a big story so easily.

While Mondo Gecko orders his allies to dispose of the truck, the Turtles are tracking Michaelangelo’s “bio-genetic infrared code” from aboard their blimp. They determine that he’s at Devil’s Mountain, and set a course to travel there immediately.

Act two ends with Sluggo convincing Basher to murder Michaelangelo by sending the truck he’s in over a cliff with a thousand-foot drop. When we return from commercials, the two villains continue to cackle as the vehicle is seen hurtling downhill. Mondo Gecko steps in, furious at his allies for their behaviour. He uses his skateboard to catch up with the truck, jumping on-board and retrieving Mikey moments before the military vehicle goes up in flames.

Michaelangelo announces his surprise at being rescued by someone he had pegged as a villain. Mondo explains that he doesn’t know why he came to the aid of Mikey, his actions being purely instinctive; now back to his normal self, he holds the Turtle at gunpoint and marches him back to Mr. X’s home.

The Turtle Blimp arrives on the scene, and upon seeing the wreckage of the truck our heroes are briefly under the impression that Michaelangelo has perished. Raphael is even tearful for a moment before the team notice that his life signs are still present. Our heroes head off in pursuit, with April travelling in the same direction.

Mr. X is seen in a Dr. Claw setup, his appearance largely obscured by the back of his chair, as he demands five billion dollars from the military over the phone. If they don’t comply in the next seven minutes, then it’ll be “kablooey”. (Who is he going to blow up seven minutes from now given the super-explosive device is in his home isolated at the top of a mountain, other than himself?) When Mondo brings in Michaelangelo, Mr. X turns around to reveal his true identity, which I can only describe as “Norman Tebbit dresses as Colonel Sanders for Halloween”. Mikey immediately picks up on this being the man who he was having nightmares about; through a flashback, we see him picking the baby lizard out of the mutagen.

Mondo Gecko is ordered by Mr. X to execute Michaelangelo; when he expresses his reluctance, X tells him that “either you finish him, or I finish you!” before storming out of the room. For his final wish, Mikey asks Mondo to return a pendant to his mother, and presents it to the lizard. In reality, this is the same trinket that Splinter used while performing hypnosis earlier. Our resident Party Dude now uses the same tactic against his captor, placing him in a trance and having him recount his own origin story.

More flashbacks follow as Mondo recalls being picked up by Mr. X – it's never explained why – and taken back to the villain’s hideout. There, X raised Mondo as he grew into a half-lizard, half-boy, leading him into a life of crime. After ending the hypnosis, Mikey convinces Mondo that he’s not really villainous, but was indoctrinated to believe he was. Mr. X, Sluggo and Basher return and are about to open fire on the two mutants, but Basher manages to accidentally activate the military device.

Mr. X has Michaelangelo in his sights when the Turtles break in, tying up Basher and Sluggo. Furious, X attempts to shoot Mondo instead. The lizard is saved by the intervention of Mikey, who knocks him out of the path of the ray gun’s blast. Michaelangelo goes on to use his grappling hook to hoist Mr. X up on one of the roof’s beams.

April arrives and immediately declares that she wishes she had a camera to chronicle this “dynamite story”, before the Turtles explain that’s an unfortunate way of putting it, as the timer on the military device has been ticking down since Basher knocked it. Now there are less than twelve seconds remaining to deactivate the bomb. Donatello is forced to quickly choose which of the wires to cut, opting to go with the purple one and successfully stopping the timer. When pressed as to how he knew which one to choose, he reveals that he just went with his trademark colour.

Mondo provides April with the sacks of money that he stole to return to the police. Now without a home, he suggests that perhaps he’ll return to the sewers. Michaelangelo is thrilled by this, and is quick to welcome the lizard as a new neighbour for the Turtles. Later, we see the team helping him to move furniture in, and a lot of gushing follows about how the green teens will now have a new ally living next door that they can call on in their daily adventures.  Mikey and Mondo head out to ride skateboards together, leaving the other Turtles to continue lugging furniture around.

(Sharp intake of breath through the nose)

No. No, no, no. I don’t care for this episode at all.

With more than a hundred adventures behind us, we’ve seen a multitude of different characters undergo some form of mutation, all of them under different circumstances. When you start meddling with the core aspects of the series and the origins of its central characters to squeeze another mutation out of it for a largely throwaway episode, that’s something else entirely. The retcon that the Turtles instantly wound up in the mutagen and Mondo Gecko also just happened to be there is, at best, a big ask for us as viewers who have been invested in the story of the green teens for years at this point, and at worst could be considered simply a gigantic middle finger to the audience. All of this for no real reason beyond shifting a few more units of one new action figure.

But wait! There’s more somehow.

Mondo’s mutation presumably is contingent on him having made contact with Mr. X, turning him half-human. But Mr. X, who must have had at least some exposure to the mutagen too, turns into... nothing? Splinter did much the same with the Turtles, and even if his transformation is confusing (because as we’ve covered previously, we saw with our own eyes that the last animal he’d been in contact with was not a rat, it was the Turtles themselves), at least he did change. If X had been an interesting new mutant enemy for the team to battle, we’d have that to chew on. Instead, we get one of the most laughably ineffectual big villains the Turtles have ever crossed paths with. Even his name suggests that this guy was a complete afterthought. Neither he, nor his henchmen Sluggo and Basher, will return. Good.

All of the Turtles are arguably diminished as a result of this episode meddling with the mythos behind their creation, but no-one comes out of it worse than poor Michaelangelo, who gets defeated by absolute schmucks over and over again. In-universe, it makes him look weakened due to the loss of his old weapons, and the fact that he gets to tie up Mr. X at the end does nothing to rebuild his credibility given that, as we’ve established, Mr. X sucks beyond belief. Mikey deserves better. We all deserve better.

Going off his toy’s file card you might expect that Mondo Gecko would be portrayed as a full-on Poochie, the most extreme radical dude possible, getting biz-zay consistently and thoroughly. For better or worse, we don’t really see much of that here. Instead, he’s largely handled as a cantankerous and gruff villain who just happens to also ride a skateboard, the need to keep his babyface turn until the end preventing him from ever becoming particularly likable. The ending of the episode suggests Mondo will be a regular fixture moving forward, but this won’t be the case: he’ll make one more appearance two years from now, in the late season seven adventure “Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter”.

Mondo’s role in the Archie TMNT Adventures comics is far more significant than his television portrayal, with the mutant lizard even appearing in the spin-off series “Mighty Mutanimals” alongside some other popular side characters like Leatherhead and Ray Fillet. His inclusion in the toy line at the height of Turtlemania seems to have boosted his profile despite only seeing a scant amount of TV time – call it “Ace Duck Syndrome”. The fact that Mondo would get a second action figure in 1992 suggests that Playmates were at least somewhat satisfied by the sales of his first toy; why they decided to dress him in full-on Woodstock hippie attire for his return to the line at the height of the grunge era is anyone’s guess.

I’m struggling to find anything positive to say here. There must have been some kids who had Mondo Gecko’s toy, or knew him from the comics, and I imagine they would have been excited to see him here, so there’s at least value in that. I suppose it’s not “Camera Bugged” bad, so that’s something? Definitely ranks alongside some of the all-time worst, though, next to “Michelangelo Toys Around” and the rest of the dreck from season four’s syndicated stretch. Given that our next episode, “Enter: Mutagen Man” will also introduce a new character from the toy line, I can only hope that it’ll be better than this.

#Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #TMNT #TMNT 1987 #1991 #Mondo Gecko #Turtlethon #Ninja Turtles #tmnt michaelangelo #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt mikey #mikey tmnt #Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko

[the-firebird69]

StringStorm – Titanicus (GMV) Warhammer 40000

Whenever the warlocks stop attacking the pseudo empire they get attacked by them because they're helping the empire and it's their gig and they don't care much about the warlock so it's a war it's a real one and it's for real reason it's going to continue and this happens fairly soon shortly there's a huge war it's Warcraft Warhammer starcraft and this is Warhammer and you can see that it's intense the robots are real big and they're Jager and they're full of arms that's why they're so big and they're plastic stuff you can see them warlock come out mutated and are fast and sleek and strong and hit pretty good I think it's hard and have to leave but they do kick their ass pretty good too and it's it's a nightmare and this is going to happen this scene is in Georgia and it's later on any one of those wipe each other out and it is not in Pennsylvania that's where I stan is killed by Lily and they do it to try and take over the house and they are subsequently killed by Mac and he's sort of see it they shrink down as the worm and that's it they're just joking and so small that they're gone in a movie Willy Wonka John Gallagher is shrunken but he's not that small he's really in his midget format and our son says you need a small 12-speed or 14 so you can have the right to throw in it it started laughing and said I have one of those and a little heavier better built it better is laughing cuz he made out of titanium is it fat little guy you can go pretty good on it like 35 it's kind of disappointing decide to put power assist it goes like 70 and he can do it too he made all sorts of mobility devices for dwarves near a pain in the ass this is going to start pretty soon Warhammer and starcraft and Warcraft and it's going to go on for quite a while and it starts because of the bugs they have to stop them themselves and get the ships going and they have the fleet come down and they start fighting it's a big war. Right now there's a huge fleet being prepared to try again and the ocean and that's a waste of time but we're doing a lot of stuff while they're doing this and we are having problems here all these movies start up and only several are preamble to the watchmen which is a preamble to other movies and the movie titanium her video does not happen and that is a kickoff and Tommy f is actually the one on the bicycle and he seems to remember Dave had a few different sticks and it's true our son says he didn't have only nunchucks he had longer sticks and she's going to go up there and see if they're there and he had a small one too and as a cop and in Dudley and it's not a stick it's your fingers and he had a nightstick and people said it was harder than hell so people are moving on it and he reminds people that the night stick has two pieces in it and that's interesting they say and this movement now

Thor Freya

Olympus

Hera Zues

#Youtube

[inkushel29]

my opps (in order)

my art skills

dead ends on flash archiving

Pen Frens

Zeebarf

my 5:20 alarm clock every weekday morning

school

myself

femboys & traps (sorry some of y'all are weird)

twinks (except Orderly)

people who spam my messages with videos (except one mutual because I'm chill w/ them)

anatomy

getting started on a drawing

bara (male muscle proportions exceeded to inhuman and horrifying standards)

the NSFW art community

Canihavepromo aka Lottie (I hope she gets deplatformed fr)

any problematic interest artist/animator I really don't like

Stamper

people who perceive lesbians in THAT way (screw y'all)

BL Yaoi Manhwas

fujoshis

proshippers (or comshippers i have no fucking idea)

finding 0 fanart of shit I like (Ballads of Reemus & etc.)

Alphazekko getting cancelled for no reason

my right ear ringing for no reason

MHA fandom

my antisocial ass

my broken bed

scenecore aesthetic and its music

instagram reel comment sections

my autistic ass for making my weirdass posts

Sia

Zeebarf for being in the NFT community

NFTs & AI

down bad mfs in comment sections

tumblr p0rn bots

my goofy ass being scared of showers

Calobi Productions

TikTok

Alex Emery's Wizard Hunt part 3 not being made

Queers of War for disappointing and traumatizing me

procrastination

the anime community in general

animating

myself trying to animate on flash cs6 but failing

Spazkid for drawing underage sonic characters and not finishing Nightmare Cops

my chronically online ass

Ipad kids

skibidi toilet (I still meme it)

my forgetful ass

finding out a person I like is an absolute piece of shit

myself again

vent people (sorry)

cutecore aesthetic

Roblox (i still play it tho)

sketchers united/pop jam kids

shitty clickbait youtube thumbnails

youtube kids

rule 34 content on youtube

content farm videos on youtube

Youtube (i still watch it)

myself again for making this list too goddamn long when it didn't need to be

uhhhhhh

the Pokemon community

people using the Pixar Mom term in the wrong way (a lot)

Discord

having to sleep early because my parents tell me to

people who harass others for no reason

Miguel O'Hara stans

myself for forgetting to start/finish shit (not school related)

my fatass self

BookTok/White woman who are obsessed with dark romance books

bad Webtoons

those AI disney mockup posters

MCYT fandom

Countryhumans fandom

TikTok art community

Twitter art community

almost any art community that's shit

l0lic0ns & sh0tac0ns (PLEASE FUCK OFF.)

this list for being too long

Nitrile & his weirdass tr@p obsession (he collaborated with Shadman and drew Mandy from Billy & Mandy as a femboy in a very suggestive way. And sometimes drew femboys that looked like children. So yeah fuck him.)

Shadman (OBVIOUSLY)

Zone for ruining The Modifyers and any cartoon in general (they got away with sexualizing minors so idk how y'all looked past that)

Jaystation

my goofy ass for staying up too late

humanizations of non-human characters being skinny white cis young anime boys

my goofy ass for being unoriginal

my goofy ass for still writing on this dang list

Gross people on Spacehey who ruin everything

FNF fandom (kind of)

FNF creepypasta mods (Sonic.exe)

Twitter/X in general

my little brother when he has a tantrum

night terrors

Astrology girls

people who use their autism/disability for a defense mechanism/excuse for when they get called out for something bad they've done

Stamper again (how tf can you be racist and fetishize WOC at the same time nevertheless you're still racist fuck you)

A Small Favor not getting it's chapter 3/final chapter and the story getting reimagined instead of finished

family vlog channels

people who hurt animals for clout

captioning my youtube videos by myself

editing my videos bc its hard

people doing stupid shit for clout in general

MojoMontebon's character Trixie (I don't like her she scares me)

finding out an artist I like is an absolute piece of shit

people who hate selfship/ oc x canon artists (leave em alone theyre just doing what makes them happy)

Your Boyfriend Game

YBG Fandom

the creator of Your Boyfriend Game

redesign vids where the final redesign is actually shit

false allegations

Apphumans community

Deviantart

Fetish artists

ok I think that's it thanks for reading I added WAY too much on this list.

[l8rhader]

Shameless Self Promotion

Remember the time I wrote a Losers Slasher fic?!  

Because I do and I hate that nobody has read it.

Here’s a taste of it:

Frank Kaspbrak was, for all intents and purposes, a good cop.  That was something he prided himself on.  The only thing that ranked higher in his mind was being a good dad to a great son.  Even if his ex-wife made it near impossible for him to see Eddie, Frank was not going to let Sonia, the force, or an act of God keep him from that.  So, imagine his surprise when he received a call from the house across the street from Sonia and Eddie at 3 am on a Wednesday morning, from Eddie’s best friend, no less, that someone’s been killed, a girl his son ran with, and that her boyfriend went out the window to avoid it.  That was something he expressed to Eddie, quite loudly, as he sat in Richie’s kitchen.

“Explain yourself, young man,” he said, voice booming amid the cacophony of sounds around the Tozier residence.

Eddie hung his head, shoulders slumped.  “I did, dad.”  He folded his arms on the kitchen table.  “I told Officer Corcoran everything.”  Reading his father’s stern expression like a well-worn comic book, he sighed, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to go over it again.  “I had a really bad nightmare.  Richie suggested that we all crash here.  Apparently, we had all been having weird dreams for the last couple of nights.  Mom’s zonked anyway, so I wouldn’t have felt safe and would have slept here either way.  We paired off so nobody was alone,” he said, stopping to drop his hand into his lap.

“What about Stanley?” his father asked, concerned.  He knew these kids well enough to know that, even discounting Bill and Bev, there was one missing.  “Is he here somewhere alone?”

Eddie shook his head.  “Stan left early.  We freaked him out, I guess.”  He closed his eyes, then continued.  “Bev and Bill were asleep, then we heard some screaming that…”

Leaning back against the fridge, Frank sighed.  “That were different than the ones from before they fell asleep, but you had to make sure, so it took longer to get to them?” he supplied, seeing his son’s discomfort as he tried to explain.  When Eddie balked, he continued.  “There were 2 used condoms in the trash by the bed.  God knows they’re not from Richie,” he laughed shortly.  Eddie blanched, swallowing thickly.  “You’re teenagers.  Bev and Bill have been together as long as Ben’s had a crush on her.  Nothing about this is a surprise to me.”

Eddie nearly laughed at that himself.  “Yeah, I guess.”  That was something that Eddie truly loved about his father.  He wasn’t hung up on anything that he knew well enough that he had done as a teenager.  He was, as far as the rest of his friends' parents were concerned, in his opinion, the best.  “Still, we got there quick, but the door was stuck.”

“Locked?”

“No, stuck,” Eddie corrected insistently.  He could still feel the strain in his arms from their efforts to pry it open.  “It wasn’t moving at all.  Like it was one piece.”  He couldn’t bear to look at his father.  He knew he sounded crazy.  He heard himself.  “When we got in the room, Bill was gone, the window was open, and Bev was-”  He trailed off.  He couldn’t say it.  Dead didn’t seem to cut it.  

Frank scrubbed at his eyes a little, then sat down.  “I’m sorry, kiddo.  This is-”  In his 25 years on the force, he’d only ever seen something like this once before.  The worst part o that was that it was the Denbrough boy’s kid brother.

There had been a string of dead kids a few summers back.  The neighbor on the corner had called in that the sewer beside her porch seemed to be spewing blood into the street.  He hadn’t taken the call seriously.  The woman was nothing more than a raging busybody, perpetually a nuisance to the Derry P.D.  By the time he’d gotten there, little Georgie Denbrough looked more like a jigsaw puzzle than a seven-year-old boy.  Bill, and by extension, Eddie and all their friends, had been thirteen.

The little boy’s death had shaken the community to it’s core.  It was tragic and senseless.  Even still, just shy of five years later, people were leery to let their kids out of their sight.  The killer had never been found.  Somehow, though, seemingly overnight, the killings had stopped.  Peace had been restored.  

Still, something about that case that summer had changed Frank.  It had even led to his divorce, among other things.

To catch another gruesome case, with another tie back to Denbrough.  It didn’t rest well with his soul.

“Do you know where Billy could have gone, Eddie?” he asked.  “If anyone would know, I think it would be you.”

Eddie was at a loss.  “I just hope he’s okay,” he said somberly, shaking his head.  Then, it hit him.  He looked up at his father.  “You know Bill didn't do this, right?”  For the first time in his life, Eddie’s father avoided his question.  It shocked him.  He didn’t know what to do.  “Dad, this wasn’t Bill.”

Instead of an answer, Frank left the room.  Eddie slammed ed his fist on the table and moved to follow him into the living room.  His father beckoned Richie onto the porch leaving Eddie with Mike and Ben.

To the surprise of his friends, Ben spoke first.  “You don’t know that it wasn’t Bill.”

Mike and Eddie turned to face him, a broken expression across his kind face.  “How can you say that?”  Mike asked.  “He would never-”

“Oh, come off it, Mike,” he snapped.  “Just because you’re in love with Bill doesn’t mean he’s a saint.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in shock.  Mike was gay?  That, he supposed, was a conversation for another day.  In the meantime-

“And just because you’re in love with Bev doesn’t mean he’s out to ruin your life!” Mike argued.  “Maybe you had something to do with it!  Jealousy’s a real bitch, Benny-boy.”

Ben stood up, rage flooding his eyes.  “I was next to you the whole fucking time!”

Shaking his head, Mike pointed out the front door.  “Where did you go when we heard all four of them start round two?  The porch!  The window was open, Ben!”  He blasted.  Frankly, he stood, looking at the clock.  “Eddie, is your dad almost done with Richie?” he asked.  He picked up his backpack and shrugged it on.  “I wanna go grab my car before school.”

“He should be,” he said quietly as he looked out the open door to check, a small peculiar going in his father’s eyes.  He was so desperately avoiding the fact that, apparently he and Richie were out, now.  “But he also said not to go to school today, just in case he-”

Mike scoffed.  “Fuck that.  I have that presentation-”

“Mike," came a deep voice from the porch.  “Wanna come talk to me so I can get you out of here?”

Eddie gulped.  How much of all of that had his dad heard?  Either way, Mike answered, “Gladly.”  Richie patted him on the shoulder as they passed.  Mike gave his hand a gentle squeeze.  “Just remember, Ben,” he said, turning back to face him.  “We all lost someone tonight.  And we’ve still only got each other.  If you see him, remember that.”

Mr. Kaspbrak led him outside.  “Come on, son.”  He followed quickly, eager to be done with Ben for the night.

#it #it chapter 2 #nightmare on elm street #the losers club