I love going trough the notes every time bc there’s always someone in the notes insisting we’re all mean and that you can just wear thick dish gloves over your fake nails as if I wouldn’t assume you’re going to Patrick Bateman my ass if you walked into the bedroom with claws and yellow rubber gloves
chapter 110 of the human bill fic the author is bravely updating in spite of really annoying shoulder pain
Ugh. Tired.
Although Bill had gotten something approximating sleep last night while he hunted the sleep paralysis demon, his body wasn't in any sort of state that could be called "rested"—especially when all his late nights the rest of the week were taken into account. At the beginning of the summer, he'd fought as hard as he could against sleep—its oblivious helplessness and its half blacked out dreams. Now that he was aware of his surroundings for at least part of his sleep cycle and was once again more powerful in his dreams than in the real world, he found himself craving more sleep.
He wouldn't be getting much more than a quick nap, though. He already had plans for the afternoon that were far more important than unimportant distractions like self-care and routine body maintenance activities:
He had a party to get to.
He put a few stripes of anti-sunscreen across the faint tan lines on his torso, dressed in his bikini with a very loud shirt and a skirt on top, and headed downstairs.
The twins were having brunch in the kitchen; by the sound of it, Mabel and Dipper were still talking about unicorn politics. Bill ducked in. "Heya, Twerp and Superior Twerp!"
"Hey Bill! Need breakfast?" Mabel shook her box of Lucky Leprechaun cereal at him. She was still wearing her princess dress.
"Already taken care of!" He held up the breakfast he'd made in his room: a sandwich consisting of dates, salsa, and two fried eggs on a slice of burnt toast.
Dipper asked, "When did you get a toaster?"
"I didn't! Anyway, I'm here for information! Looks like Ice Bag's skipping work." In front of the museum entrance he'd found a cardboard box with a slit cut in the lid that said "Pay for self-guided tour here" and another box by the cash register that said "Buy crap here (if you shoplift our psychic witches will curse you!)" "So which of you has her number?" He stared hard at Dipper, who definitely had it.
Dipper avoided making eye contact. "You mean Wendy? Why?"
"I need her services as chaperone! Tats and blondie invited me to hang out today, I figure she'll be there too."
Mabel let out a cheer at the same time Dipper groaned in despair. "You got invited to Tambry's pool party too?" she said. "That's great! We can go together!"
"Works for me! Chaperoning problem solved!" Bill grabbed the enchanted friendship bracelets off the coat rack, twirled one end over his head like a tiny lasso, and tossed it at Mabel. It flopped to the floor a few feet in front of Bill. That trick was harder without a unicorn horseshoe.
"Why did Nate and Lee invite you?" Dipper asked.
"They were impressed by my quick wit and addictive charisma!" Bill said. "And maybe they pitied me for going to a boring old man movie with a boring old man. Whatever gets my foot in the door!"
"Come on, man, this isn't fair. Hanging out with Wendy's gang is one of the only ways I can get away from you. You can't move in on them, too."
"Sorry, kid, those're my friends now." He gave Dipper a sweet smile. "I guess you'll have to learn to share."
####
Soos and Melody were still catching up on some much-needed sleep; so instead Stan was compelled to drive the trio over to Tambry's house—and only because Bill loudly mused to himself about how easy it would be to hot-wire the Diablo and drive it himself.
"This isn't the kind of party that'll get too raunchy, is it?" Stan asked. "Not that I care! I just don't want you kids playing spin-the-bottle with an ancient bodysnatching demon in the circle."
"I think I can do better than sixteen-year-old humans," Bill shot back. "Humans don't even play spin-the-botttle right! Nobody ever gets eaten!" Stan gave him a concerned look in the rearview mirror.
Dipper shuddered. "Ew. No, we're not doing anything like that. It's just Wendy's gang this time, Tambry didn't invite anyone else. We're hanging out in the pool and doing normal stuff."
"And getting totally cray-cray!" Mabel declared. She and Bill cheered and high-fived.
Dipper said, "Personally? The most 'cray-cray' thing I plan to do is get a recording of Robbie's music video footage from Summerween." He patted his backpack, where he'd stowed all his investigation supplies.
"What footage?" Bill asked. "I thought the recording was wiped out by that ghost in the cemetery that's scared of cameras."
"No, it—wait, ghost? Is that what corrupted all the footage? What ghost?"
Bill sneered at him, "Why do you wanna know? So you can go take her picture, you creep?"
Dipper shot him an irritated look. "Whatever. Anyway, the footage from outside the cemetery is fine. Robbie says some of the footage shows what looks like a ghost coming out of me? I haven't told anybody outside the shack that I've been having out-of-body experiences, but if Robbie recorded one of them, this could be huge. Think about how cool the Guide to the Unexplained episode would be!"
"Huh." Stan considered that. "Think we can make any money off of it?"
"Uh... If the episode gets enough views, I might be able to get ad revenue, yeah."
"Buy the rights to the video from him," Stan said. "For a flat rate, not a percentage. When this thing starts bringing in the dough, you do not wanna be on the hook for royalties." Bill nodded in agreement.
Mabel stretched out her seat belt so she could lean over the back of the front bench. "What do you do if he says he won't sell unless he gets royalties?"
"You rig the contract," Bill said. "Put in a clause that says 'You won't not be paid no royalties.' He'll think you accidentally put in a double negative and promised you will pay him royalties, so he'll sign it without pointing out your 'mistake.' He'll be so smug about pulling a fast one on you that he won't notice the triple negative."
"The old triple negative trick! Classic negotiating tactic," Stan said.
As they approached Tambry's street, Dipper said, "Hey, Grunkle Stan, do you mind letting us out at the end of the block? No offense, and I really appreciate the ride but... getting dropped off at a teen party by my great-uncle is kinda..."
"Hey, no problem! You want to look hip in front of the cool cats. I can dig it," said Stan, with totally unwarranted confidence in his understanding of teenage society and slang. He pulled to a stop several houses away from Tambry's. "I won't embarrass you. Here's your stop."
"Thanks," Dipper said, relieved.
Bill slid out after Mabel, glanced up the street, and flashed Stan a ghost of a smirk before Mabel shut the door.
When they knocked, Tambry shouted to someone, "Can you get that?" After a few seconds, Wendy opened the door. "Hey guys!"
"Hey! Wendy!" Dipper's face lit up. "Are we on time?"
"Yeah, like half the gang isn't here y—"
Stan drove by behind them, honking. "Have fun!" he yelled, leaning out the window with an impish grin. "Make good choices! No more eating glue sticks! Remember not to pick your noses in front of the ladies! Call me if you get scared of the big kids!" He laughed obnoxiously.
"Grunkle Staaan!" Dipper pulled his hat down lower over his face, hiding from the humiliation.
Mabel turned around and retorted, "Oh yeah?! Well, you remember not to—to—um—smell bad!"
"And try not to hit another mailbox!" Bill added.
Stan twisted around further in his seat to squint back at the group. "Another? Whaddaya mean, anoth—" There was a crunch as the front passenger side wheel bumped up over the curb and knocked over a mailbox.
Tambry—along with a couple other neighbors along the street—ducked outside to investigate the noise.
For a moment, Stan stared at the tilted mailbox post digging into his bumper; then swerved back onto the road and peeled out with a squeal of tires.
Wendy burst out laughing. "Wooo! Way to go, Mr. Pines!"
"Your family's a bunch of freaks," Tambry said nonjudgmentally.
Wendy stood aside to let the trio in. "You guys need any snacks? We've got chips, soda, glue sticks..."
"Ha ha," Dipper muttered.
As Tambry shut the door, Bill asked, "Hey, did I miss the memo about the costume party?" Tambry was wearing a cheap polyester hooded black robe with a machine-cut "tattered" hem from a Halloween/Summerween costume. It was tight and a few inches too short at the wrists and ankles, as though she'd been much shorter when she'd bought it.
"Oh, yeah, we're doing this dark ritual in the living room? Demon summoning stuff. You can join if you want, I guess." Perhaps it was his egomania speaking, but Bill got the impression that offer was directly slightly more toward him than toward the kids.
"Oh! I know how to summon demons!" Mabel said.
"Yeah? Cool. I guess you can come too or whatever."
Wendy lowered her voice. "Hey—c'mon, Tam, if you have to do that crap, don't do it in front of..."
"Well, I'm in," Bill said chipperly. He hurried ahead of the rest of the group into the living room, where Nate and Lee were kneeling around the coffee table, fussing with a candle and a bag of chips. In lieu of proper black robes, they'd cloaked themselves in black bedsheets. Nate had the corner of a fitted sheet over his head like a hood. Bill drifted over to the table to inspect their work. "Whatcha doin'?"
They'd gotten a plastic plate and set up a birthday candle shaped like a 3, a dollar bill folded up until only the Eye of Providence was visible, and four cheesy triangular corn chips—one of which had an eye drawn on it in marker—that they were unsuccessfully trying to lean against each other to form a pyramid.
"Making an offering," Lee said.
Bill beamed at the plate. "I love it."
"Try peanut butter," Nate said, "we can glue the chips in place."
Dipper stopped outside the living room as soon as he spotted the offering, and asked, "What demon, exactly?" Like he didn't know.
"Bill Cipher?" Tambry said; and at Dipper's look of disgust and Mabel's surprised grimace, she winced—not hard, but enough to disrupt her deadpan. "Ohh, riiight. I forgot you guys, like... actually knew him."
"Try 'were almost murdered by him,'" Wendy said.
Tambry scoffed and rolled her eyes in a way that said she knew she'd made the faux pas here but she'd be damned if she ever admitted it.
"I'll pass," Dipper said flatly. "Is Robbie here yet? He was gonna show me something."
"Not yet. You can wait in the living room," Tambry said. "We'll move the dark ritual to the kitchen. It's... got a better atmosphere."
Wendy immediately flopped on a couch to join Dipper, and shoved the coffee table a couple inches away with her boot. "Get this crap outta here!" Nate and Lee groaned when their chip pyramid fell down again.
Mabel squinted at Bill, decided he looked a little too eager to join in, and said, "I think I'll supervise."
####
Once the pyramid was set up on the kitchen table, they turned out the light—which didn't do much, since the kitchen was open to the window-lit dining room by a large archway—lit the candle, and gathered together in front of it (except for Mabel, "supervising" from the dining room, staring at Bill to remind him not to have too much fun being worshiped).
While Nate, Lee, and (trying not to smirk at the absurdity) Bill held finger-triangles over their eyes, Tambry did her best to sound solemn, although she couldn't quite able to shake the hint of ironic sarcasm from her voice: "Oh mighty god of chaos and parties, in exchange for your protection, we offer you thisss... offering. Keep my parents from coming home early and catching me throwing a party; and do not let them find out from the neighbors. Our fates and summer fun are in your creepy freak hands." She tried to think of something to add, shrugged, and said, "Amen."
"Amen," the others echoed. Lee asked, "Do you think it worked?"
All five jumped as a crack of thunder made the house rumble.
There was a tense pause; and then Bill declared, "Offering accepted!" and snatched up the corn chips to eat, peanut butter and marker and all.
Tambry peered through a window in the dining room. There were a few thin clouds on the horizon, but the sky was mostly clear. Definitely no storm clouds. "Weird."
"Weird, or weird-weird?" Nate asked.
She frowned, pulled out her phone, and checked her weather app. Clear skies. "I'm gonna get my radio." She left.
Mabel whispered to Bill, "How'd you do that?"
He didn't do that. He didn't think he did that, anyway. Maybe he had? He hoped he had. He told himself he had. "Oh, you know," he said unconvincingly. "Party chaos god powers."
####
The whole back wall of Tambry's living room was a five-panel folding glass door that her dad had almost installed correctly, and consequently it was being held shut with duct tape to keep the bugs from crawling in; and her dad had halfway converted the deck behind the living room into an outdoor bar/kitchen, and, according to her, left it in this state of halfway converted for the past two summers; and consequently she wasn't allowed to open the patio doors or use the patio because they weren't safe or stable. So naturally she grabbed a roll of duct tape and took a picture of the patio so they could put everything back where it belonged before her parents got home.
Thankfully, the actual pool was finished—mainly because Tambry's dad hadn't handled that. The backyard was terraced into two levels, with the unfinished patio on the upper terrace surrounded by an iron fence and the lower terrace containing the pool. Mabel and Bill stripped down to their bathing suits as they took the stairs down to the lower terrace and tossed their clothes on a chair before diving into the pool. Wendy sauntered after them to claim another pool chair.
About a third of the patio's bricks hadn't been laid down, and the rest were piled haphazardly at the edge of the construction zone; but over by the bar things were reasonably complete-ish, so the rest of the party set up folding chairs underneath the awning, put the radio on the bar, and started searching for a decent AM radio station.
"Why is AM always crap?" Tambry grumbled, flipping past the third station to mention Jesus in under fifteen seconds. "It's all new stations, talk shows, and old people music if you're lucky. Why aren't there any stations that play metal? Or at least rock?"
"None of the FM stations play metal either," Nate pointed out.
"Okay, but that's because we're like, in the middle of nowhere. But there's an alt rock station in Portland." Tambry finally settled for a reasonably clear oldies station and flopped in her chair. "And we do get that classic rock station out of Washington. It doesn't play anything more adventurous than Günn Metälle Græy, but..."
"Hey, GMG were pioneers."
"Like thirty years ago, maybe."
"You guys listen to metal?" Dipper asked. He'd elected to stay in the chair nearest the living room as he waited for Robbie to show up.
Nate laughed. "Uh, yeah?" He gestured at his tattoos, as if they should have made his musical tastes obvious. "The heavier the better."
"Nu metal isn't heavy," Tambry said flatly.
"Oh, whatever, Tambers, you're into that weird Scandinavian opera metal."
Lee, who'd claimed the chair next to Nate, caught Dipper's eye, and made a low whistle as he pantomimed something sailing over his head. Dipper huffed a laugh in agreement.
"Why, are you into metal?" Nate asked.
Dipper said, "No, it's just you guys went to that hipstery music festival last summer—I figured that's what you were into."
Nate said, "Nah, that stomp-and-clap stuff is Wendy and Lee's scene—"
Lee nodded. "It's true, I'm hella into stomping and clapping."
"—the rest of us just went to hang out and eat overpriced snacks."
Tambry said, "But if Zombie Corpse Sandwich ever comes to town, we're making everyone else come along. That's how friendship works."
Lee shrugged in acceptance. "I could get into making my ears bleed, too." Nate punched his shoulder.
"I'm surprised you guys aren't in Robbie's band," Dipper said. "He does the same kind of music, right?"
Tambry made a so-so gesture with one hand. "Kinda."
Nate and Tambry had helped out with filming Robbie's music video on Summerween, but had seemed completely unmoved by his grumbling that Robbie V and the Tombstones had far fewer tombstones than advertised. He'd explained that at the moment, his backing band consisted exclusively of "session musicians"—which meant a midi synthesizer for keyboards that he didn't exactly know how to use, and a couple kids in the high school band's percussion section that promised they'd totally play drums for him at a live show but kept flaking out when he tried to schedule something. He'd been desperate enough to ask if Dipper and Mabel played anything, but hadn't been terribly impressed when they'd answered "tuba" and "heartstrings."
Nate shrugged. "I like cake, too. Doesn't mean I wanna be a baker."
Tambry's face twisted up in a grimace. "Actuallyyy, I did join his band? He asked me last summer because some of his songs need a female vocalist? Annnd then he fired me a couple months later."
"Because her singing sucks," Lee added helpfully.
"Shut up. It turned into this whole big thing—but it's cool now, we're cool."
(Mabel was already deeply engrossed in proper pool-party activities—making dolphin noises, trying to see how fast she could swim across the pool by kicking off the wall, and coughing up water when she attempted to do both at the same time—but Bill, simply enjoying the feeling of weightlessness in the water, had his full attention on the teens' conversation. So Robbie must've invited Tambry into his band some time in August—summer break—and fired her in October—after a month of school. From the corner of an eye, Bill studied Tambry's face as she described her hiring and firing; and then studied Nate's as he reacted to Tambry's comment; and then Lee's as he reacted to Nate's reaction.)
The doorbell rang, and Robbie's muffled voice called, "Yo, babe! The party's here!"
Tambry immediately hopped up. "Coming!"
Dipper started to follow her inside, but was stopped by Lee's hand on his shoulder. "Give them a couple minutes," he said. "Trust me."
Dipper grimaced as he figured out what sort of sordid face-sucking must be going on. "I'll... wait in the living room."
"Smart man."
Nate grumbled, "Tambry didn't go to the door for anyone else. What is going on with those two? I just don't get it."
Lee laughed. "You're so jealous."
"I'm not! I'm not!" Nate said. "I mean—okay, yeah, I am, but seriously. They were on-again off-again the whole school year, and suddenly now everything's cool? Why do they even want to be around each other anymore? This isn't even about me, I don't think either of them should want to be together! They make each other miserable!"
"But they have been cool all summer," Lee said. "This is the longest they've ever been together. Maybe they finally figured things out!"
"Maybe. I hope so. I mean—" he grimaced sheepishly at himself, "I kinda do, kinda don't hope so? It just bugs me, is all."
"Duuude." Lee let out a long, noisy sigh. "Give it a rest. You complain about them fighting twice as much as they actually fight."
"I know, I know."
(In the pool, eyes shut, Bill let an amused, condescending smirk curl up one side of his face. Ah, the dramas of the Homo sapiens when their hormones-to-life-experience ratio was most unbalanced. It was as complicated as it was pointless. And so easily exploitable. He mentally ran over what he knew about the friend group, looking for vulnerabilities he could exploit to let him shimmy into the middle of their social circle—
(Mabel did a back flip into the pool without looking where she was going and they both went down screaming.)
By the time Robbie made it to the patio, he and Tambry had twined their arms around each other's backs to form the nightmarish four-eyed four-legged shambling beast spoken of in ancient Aristophanic myth. Unperturbed by their transformation, Dipper bolted straight up to him. "Hey, Robbie! Do you have the video with you?"
"Whoa! Calm down, I just got here." Robbie slung a strap off his shoulder and hefted up his laptop bag. "Yeah, it's right here."
"Can I see?" Dipper had already taken off his backpack to pull out his journal and a camera.
"Okay, okay. Just don't get too excited about it, alright? It looks cool and all but it's probably just some weird technical malfunction, not a ghost-ghost video. I mean, obviously. Since you're not dead."
"Yeah," Dipper said with a fake smile. "Right. Definitely."
Wendy had reached the edge of the pool at the same time Bill was flopping himself out of it—her life guarding skills were a little rusty, apparently. "Are you guys okay?!"
Bill coughed up a lungful of water—oh, the chlorine made that so much worse than nearly drowning in the lake—checked to make sure Mabel on the ground beside him was still breathing, then kicked her leg in retaliation. "It'll take more than that to kill me."
Mabel groaned.
Wendy sighed in relief. "Okay, next time you try to figure out what it'll take? Do it when I'm not around."
Bill said, "I'll schedule my next near-death experience for when you're out of town." He got to his feet and called to the upper terrace, "Hey! I wanna see this ghost video!"
Mabel punched Bill's ankle weakly, but got to her feet as well. "Yeah—" hack, "—me too!"
Dipper gritted his teeth; but unfortunately, if Robbie's video really had captured footage of him astral projecting, Bill probably knew more about how it worked than anyone else, so Dipper would have to show it to him eventually. "Yeah, fine," he grumbled.
"C'mon," Robbie said, pointing toward the dining room. "It's easier to see in the dark."
As Bill passed Lee, he elbowed his shoulder and murmured, "You should be more careful."
He squinted up at Bill. "About what?"
"Calling the kettle black, you pot." At Lee's puzzled look, Bill said, "Calling out your pal for being jealous?"
"What are y..." Lee choked on his words and went even paler as he registered that Bill was implying exactly what he'd feared he might be implying.
Bill flashed him a mischievous grin, then left him to stew in his panic.
####
"So this is just the raw footage—I haven't done the sound mixing or anything yet—so just ignore the audio, it'll get better."
Tambry rolled her eyes. "We're here for the ghost, babe, not the song."
"Right." Robbie settled the laptop on the dining room table and hit play.
The video showed the gate in front of the cemetery, several jack-o'-melons balanced on tombstones in the background glowing red. Robbie's song played tinnily, but not loud enough to drown out Thompson asking, "We're not going in the graveyard, right?" and Robbie shushing him. Dipper and Mabel gave the camera their best dead-eyed Victorian ghost child stares as they whispered, "We're the things that you have lost. Ch—"
Robbie pointed at the screen. "There!" In the video, Dipper's face had gone blank and still while Mabel kept singing. "See? Totally looks like a ghost! Sick, right?"
Mabel laughed. "He looks more like a zombie." She poked Dipper's cheek. "Zombie face!"
"Ow, stop." He shoved Mabel away and cringed in embarrassment. "I think this is the take where I focused so hard I—uh—zoned out for a moment."
Tambry squinted at the screen. "Where's the ghost?"
"What?" Robbie paused the video and pointed at the screen. "Right there! See?"
Tambry, Bill, and the kids studied the spot he'd indicated, a couple feet over Dipper's head. Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance; Mabel shook her head and said, "All I see is the gate."
"Yeah, me too. Is it hiding between the graves?"
"What! Are you serious?" Robbie pointed more emphatically. "No, it's in front of the gate! You have to look through it to see the bars! It's literally right there."
"You're messing with us," Tambry said flatly.
"Nuh uh!"
"You're messing with us or you're crazy."
(Bill shot Tambry a dirty look.)
"No, you're messing with me," Robbie said heatedly. "There's no way you don't see it!"
Dipper leaned closer to the screen and squinted harder. "What, here?" He pointed at the screen. "There's some white blurs here, I guess it kind of looks like a face? See?"
"Where?" Mabel asked.
"Right here and..."
"Ohhh, yeah! Looks more like a cat face to me."
Tambry wrinkled her nose. "I kinda see it. It looks more like a lens flare or something, though."
Robbie stared at them in amazement. "You think that looks like a lens flare?"
"This happens all the time in paranormal investigating," Dipper said, trying not to sound disappointed. "There's this whole thing called 'ghost orbs' that are only visible in photographs, but most of the time it's just a piece of dust caught in the camera's flash like an inch away from the lens, or a reflection from a light bulb outside the picture frame. And some people will swear they hear words in EVP recordings while other people only hear static." He looked at Bill. Bill ignored it until Dipper said, "Come on, you keep talking about 'human pattern-detecting instincts.' Isn't there a word for that stuff?"
Bill's distaste for the conversation warred against his need to assert that he knew more than anyone else in the room, and he grudgingly said, "Pareidolia."
Robbie scowled at them. "Ugh, whatever! You guys are stupid."
While the twins and Tambry headed back to the pool, Bill hung back. As Robbie went to shut his laptop, Bill placed a finger on the frame, holding it open. "Robbie, Robbie, Robbie," he sighed. "Why are you wasting your time showing this stuff to the normies?"
Robbie shot him a suspicious look. "What are you talking about?"
"They can't see it," Bill said. "You can. I can. They can't."
Slowly, Robbie said, "Hold on. You mean, this is a real...?" He caught himself and shook his head. "Oh no, uh-uh. If no one else saw anything, how do I know you did? You could just be messing with me."
"I could be," Bill conceded cheerfully, then dug into Robbie's laptop bag ("Wh—hey! That's my bag, man!") and retrieved a black marker. "Buuut I'm not." He leaned over the laptop and shakily outlined Dipper's bluish-gray ghost with the marker, like the chalk outline around a corpse, and then traced some of the finer details: eyes, mouth, nose, arms, torso, down to where his spectral form trailed off around the knees as it emanated from the top of his head. "Clear as day!" He added a dumb curly mustache, then capped the marker and tossed it at Robbie, who fumbled it.
Robbie stared at the outline in wonder; then glowered at Bill. "Hey, that was permanent marker. Is that gonna come off?"
"Sure! Permanent marker wipes right off glass. You can get it clean with a paper towel and water," Bill lied. "So, believe I can see ghosts now?"
"I guess." Robbie groaned. "Man, you mean this is an actual ghost video? We're the only ones who can see it?"
"Afraid so."
"But this is Dipper! He's not dead! Is he?"
"Don't tell him I told you, but this past year he's developed this really embarrassing problem with involuntary astral projection. Puberty, am I right?" Bill shrugged. "I've been helping the poor kid get it under control."
Bill decided not to mention to Robbie that since most humans had to be in the mindscape to see in the mindscape, Dipper would be able to see the ghost in the footage if he were in the middle of an out-of-body experience. After all, why would he want to help them collaborate? He was here to try to poach Dipper's teen friend group out from under him. (Dipper didn't deserve 'em, anyway. The only one of the gang he cared about as a person was Wendy. With the rest, his interest in who they were as people only extended as far as figuring out what he needed to do to convince them he was cool.)
(Which was also Bill's priority—but unlike Dipper, Bill had the common sense to realize that once he did convince them he was cool, he could exploit their friendship.)
Robbie let out a frustrated sigh. "How does that kid keep finding new ways to mess my life up!" He dropped down in one of the dining room chairs, chin in his hands, glaring at the screen. He hit play, watching the rest of the clip: Dipper and Mabel finished singing their lines, Mabel noticed Dipper had "zoned out" and shook his shoulder, and Dipper started awake as his soul was sucked back down into his body. Robbie sighed.
After a moment, he turned his glare on Bill. "Hey, how did you know I can see ghosts?"
"Because you can see the ghost in that video, genius."
"Oh. Yeah. Right."
But that wasn't true. As soon as Bill had found out who the newborn Valentino kid's mom was, he'd known there was a chance Robbie would be able to see ghosts. And he'd suspected those genes had finally kicked in when Robbie hit puberty and took a turn for the gothic.
But he'd found out for sure a few weeks before Weirdmageddon.
Over thirty years ago, during the first test of the interdimensional portal, one Fiddleford Hadron "Spectacles" McGucket had briefly fallen into the Nightmare Realm and witnessed Bill Mischief "What The Hell Is That Thing" Cipher removing his exoskeleton to eat, and promptly went mad from the sight. Which didn't offend Bill at all. Really.
McGucket had erased the memory as soon as possible, but shreds of it had escaped containment to noodle around in his noodle for years. From time to time he'd attempt to tell people about his brief snatches of horrific visions, using equally disjointed phrases: "triangle" or "spaghettification" or "Yroo Xrksvi" (which Bill was kind of impressed he could pronounce) or "end of the world" or "the one-eyed beast" or "mandibles" or "birch trees"… Never able to verbally or mentally add everything up into a coherent story.
And in the nature of local gossip and urban legends, as word spread about crazy Old Man McGucket's ramblings, Gravity Falls' collective subconscious wove together these loose threads into a logical narrative, and thus uncovered the message that McGucket was clearly so desperate to send:
If you go out into the forest, deep into the birch trees, you can summon a demon triangle if you leave a plate of spaghetti.
And Bill thought that was so hilarious that he just went with it. Anyway, he liked spaghetti. Not that he could taste it without a body to possess, but it was the thought that counted. And thus this extremely localized urban legend survived for the next thirty years.
It wasn't any kind of proper summoning ritual—no candles, no chalk circles, no backwards Latin chanting—nothing he'd be able to detect from the Nightmare Realm. But in July he'd happened to be in town, making sure nothing would interfere with Ford's big arrival, and he'd seen a couple stupid teens—armed with a video camera, night vision goggles, and a plate of spaghetti—making plans to summon him. He'd decided to indulge their morbid curiosity.
It was past 11 p.m. and Robbie and Thompson had been sitting out in the woods watching a cooling plate of spaghetti for nearly an hour before they were sleepy enough for Bill to knock them out and put them in a dream state—his preferred way to answer a summoning. A sleep paralysis nightmare without the paralysis, making them susceptible to whatever illusions Bill planted in their minds. As thanks for the spaghetti, he'd introduced himself and gifted each of them with a vision of one of their potential future deaths. They'd been so grateful that they ran out of the forest screaming.
That was when Bill knew Robbie had inherited his mother's eyes: when Thompson woke from his nightmare, he looked around wildly before bolting in the direction he hoped he'd left his van; but when Robbie woke up, he looked straight in Bill's eye, like a scared rabbit caught in the light of a UFO's tractor beam. And when Bill said "Boo," he screamed, fell backward on his butt, and scrambled up to race after Thompson.
As they ran, Thompson had swung his flashlight around, searching for any sign of their psychic assailant, and never saw a thing. Only Robbie had kept looking back over his shoulder as Bill chased them out of the woods.
When they were both safely home, Robbie had ordered Thompson to delete the video; Thompson had agreed, lied, and kept it in hopes of maybe someday using it against Robbie, if he ever worked up the nerve to stand up to his friends. He assumed Robbie was just embarrassed by how badly Bill had freaked them out; because when Thompson watched the video, all he saw was two teen boys acting like idiots, running around hollering in panic.
But when Robbie watched the video, he saw the ten foot tall triangle looming out of the trees, cackling maniacally as he chased them.
"Anyway," Bill went on, "I knew your mom could, so it seemed like a safe bet!"
"How'd you know—? Ohh, right, Wendy said you spent thirty years as a ghost or something like that? Because you got caught in the weird stuff at the Mystery Shack?"
"Something like that. Anyway, I've always been able to see things no one else can—and I've got a pretty good eye for other people with the same talent."
"Huh. That's cool, I guess." Robbie shut his laptop. Not meeting Bill's gaze, he added quietly, "I've never met anyone else besides my mom who can see ghosts."
"And I bet that must be a treat. Going downstairs, seeing your mom cheerfully chatting away with a customer, trying to guess whether she's talking to a mourner or to whoever she's embalming today..."
"Ugh, I know! I hate it! When I was a kid I kinda thought she was making it up, talking to the air and pretending there was a ghost there—but being able to see them too is even worse. Now I can't tell them apart!" Swinging his laptop bag onto his shoulder, he gestured animatedly in frustration, as if he were pointing out some imaginary ghost in front of them both. "But if I walk in and some old lady is crying and I don't know if she died or her husband died, I can't just ask. And Mom doesn't help, she doesn't talk to the ghosts like they're any different from the living customers!"
"You think that's bad? Try having a mom who thinks you're a liar," Bill said; and his blood ran cold.
Why had he said that? Not even millennia of therapy had pried that out of him. It must have been—he groped around for an excuse—Pacifica's fault; she'd tricked him into talking about his childhood a week ago, and now there was a leak in the dam. He'd have to stuff something in the gap, and soon.
"Yeah, I guess that sounds bad too," Robbie grudgingly conceded. "It sucks, though. Doesn't it? The entire... knowing stuff nobody else does and just having to act normal about it? When you can see this... whole world nobody else does?"
It must have just been because Bill's confession had left him vulnerable for a moment, but the question hit him like a punch to the gut. His lungs stopped working for a second. While he tried to restart them, he filled the silence by nodding. "Having to choose between conforming with the normies and being wrong—or everyone seeing you as crazy?"
"Yeah! Yeah! It's one of those catch-22s!" Robbie obviously had no idea what a catch-22 was, but Bill decided to let that one slide. "I'll never conform, though. I'm not gonna be one of those sheeple that swallow anything the mainstream shoves down their throat."
"Yeah, I can see that, Broken Heart." Bill poked the middle of Robbie's hoodie—the one he'd bought at Edgy On Purpose, which was just about the most mainstream possible way of rejecting the mainstream. "Although I don't see you preaching the truth to the masses, either."
Robbie winced. "I just... don't talk about ghosts with people." Coolly, he said, "I use my music to talk about my experiences instead."
"That's how you do it! When life gives you a weird eye mutation—make something you can sell people."
"Yeah," Robbie half-chuckled, "I guess. I'm not really making any money off my music yet, though. I've sold like, three CDs? And two were to my mom?" He suddenly couldn't meet Bill's gaze. "Do you wanna... I dunno, maybe, like, hear a couple of my songs sometime or whatever? It totally doesn't matter if you don't, I don't care or anything, I just thought maybe you might be interested. Because of the themes and stuff. I think you'd, you know, get it. But it's whatever if you don't, s'cool."
A part of Bill balked at the thought of getting dragged into politely pretending to like some sheltered teen human's tedious emo music.
But the rest of him glowed at the thought of being the one to "get" it for someone—especially for some kid who really needed to be got. "Sure! Love to!"
"Wait—really? You're not just saying that to be nice?"
"Really! I mean it!" He grinned his most charming grin—and it felt a bit less like an act than usual. "I happen to be a bit of a musician myself."
####
(Some of you are going to ask, "hey, if Robbie can see ghosts, why didn't he notice them during The Inconveniencing?" and i wasn't able to fit an explanation in this chapter, but it isn't a spoiler, so: he did see them, but he's used to seeing random ghosts around town, so he just ignored the two old people floating in the corner grumbling about the obnoxious kids.
you know how all the other teens get captured by the ghosts, but Robbie just disappears at some point yet we don't see him get captured? He was able to see where the ghosts were before they made themselves visible, so he was the only one able to find a hiding spot.
And you know how he gripes in Fight Fighters that there's always ghosts or monsters around Dipper—indicating he remembers the events of The Inconveniencing—but we see that the Blind Eye made him forget about Rumble McSkirmish? He didn't subsequently freak out about the ghosts—because he's used to them—but he did freak out about Rumble; so the Blind Eye picked him up over the Rumble incident but not the ghosts.
"the nightmarish four-eyed four-legged shambling beast spoken of in ancient Aristophanic myth" - if you aren't familiar with this reference, google aristopanes origin of love.
TBOB stuff! The reference to Bill clamming up in therapy was added due to Theraprism, although him opening up to Robbie over the shared experience of weird mutant vision was a pre-TBOB plan. Obviously the entire description of Robbie & Thompson's meeting with Bill comes directly from the incident on This Is Not A Website Dot Com. Tying the concepts of "spaghettification" and "mandibles" to Fiddleford's meeting with Bill lets me foreshadow some stuff I've been plotting for future chapters since... at least November 2023. Robbie being able to see ghosts was also first foreshadowed in ch 32.
Robbie slowly dragging Bill into caring about his terrible emo band was also a pre-TBOB plan, but the fact that Keyhole was in a horrible high school emo band will absolutely be getting incorporated.
anyway for the sake of my shoulder pain please leave a comment & let me know what you think. it won't help with the shoulder pain but it'll make me happy.)
@that-vamp-starr @shame-in-you @coldmilkbeforebed @nightmare8-420 @sick-with-rot @state0flove4ndtrust @your-garden-of-stone + anyone else who wants to do this
Charlie: Accidentally indulged in too much ‘free time’, turns out I’ve been reported missing for over six months and presumed dead by most local and national authorities
How have I never seen these outfits before???? Lust with a cute little pony??? I need the whole set immediately
This is from the DX book? I finally got ahold of one but I’m not entirely sure what it is, it’s a bunch of quizzes and what appears to be fan work. Very cute stuff. I just wanted it because it has one of my favorite illustrations on the front, Scar looks so goofy >:]
HEYY THE ZINE IS OUT NOWWW GO CHECK IT OUT NOOWWWW
@chaosquillcollection https://chaosquillcollection.itch.io/future-with-you its FREE TO DOWNLOAD CEHKC IT OUTTT GOG GO GOGOG
also check the podfics folder bc some amazing people VOICED this comic whwowoowowkoajojaspofja
ok about the comic, er... well maybe ill come back wiht mroe thoughts later
Actually, my therapist has told me this is a healthy way of processing things. Because you can get the trauma out of your head And you can write the ending you wish it had. The trusted person rescue, the catharsis of getting to kill the one who hurt you.
It's good for your brain. It's healthier than bottling it up. Fiction is where we go for emotional release. That can be true with trauma too.
Adding @dear-massacre's tags because they are so true:
#this is why it's important to remember that fictional characters are fake #they have no agency. they're made up #it hurts no one to make any character go through the horrors #it is healthy and cathartic
my thoughts about Caine's model lacking many essential facial features (as if he was never intended to show any emotions) and yet him being literally the most expressive character in the circus despite everything.
me being low-key obsessed with the implications episode 7 left us with. Players questioning everything they've been told and Caine being in the center of it all.
I want them all to be healed and happy, little guy absolutely included, but man the situation is rough, and the odds are against us
(Also please ignore the fact that I've messed up while writing my own name in the first couple of frames hah, am tireddd)
kianamaiart
annaxmalina
blakekathryn
izzy806
janainaart
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
