entrancelogs | 'cause you thought you'd escaped

Entry tags:

'cause you thought you'd escaped

Who: Alex Kralie and anyone/everyone
Where: All around Gravity Falls
When: February 5th-9th (specify which day in the subject header)
Rating: Let's say PG-13. Alex is a foulmouth
Summary: Fairies and gremloblins and tourist traps, oh my!
The Story: beneath the cut!

February 5th and 6th; Mystery Mansion

God, he is so bored.

Alex thinks he might be starting to have an allergic reaction to how much obnoxiously fake stuff there is scattered all around this place. And people actually buy this crap? He turns over the price tag on one of the dubiously-named "attractions" and snorts. What a scam.

But man, he can't remember when he last had two hundred bucks in cold hard cash to just spend however he sees fit. Ordinarily that'd go to a savings account, or to chip away at those student loans, or would be added to his private stockpile devoted to the Production-Level Movie Equipment Investment Fund, but he sincerely doubts the money will linger past the event's end. So, with a sigh, Alex submits to the thrall of capitalist purchase. He might put forth some money for a tour just to see what all the fuss is about. He might even buy something other than a disposable camera, just to shake things up. He's gotta use up this cash somehow, right?

February 7th; Fairies

Of course, what should he walk into within five minutes of venturing into the woods but a swarm, a literal swarm, of winged little pests? He swats at them furiously, stumbling blind through the semi-thick woodland, practically snarling under his breath as those bright fluttering pains in the ass dodge every clumsy swipe of his hand. This place had better not have poison oak, or Alex will have words. He'll have angry words, furious words, as soon as he gets - these - things - off - his -

Crash.

That's roughly the point in time where Alex trips over a root and faceplants, possibly onto a rock or sharp object of some kind. You might trip over him as he lies there, surrounded by a dancing halo of colorful chirping lights, wondering where in his life he went so wrong.

February 8th; Gremloblins

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, HOLY SHIT - "

Running at breakneck speed through the woods. Yep, this sounds familiar. Only instead of some ghostly-thin spectre-like faceless nightmare, this thing is a hulking, lumbering, snarling...well, he doesn't really have a word for it. He just knows it apparently doesn't like cameras or bright flashes, and it's currently fixated on him and mad. Oh, joy. Too far, Alex. You went too far, and now you're going to suffer for it.

He barely manages to duck a swipe of the thing's massive claws just as its jaws part in a furious roar.

"For the love of - help! Can anyone - " The rest of that sentence is lost as Alex once again has to devote the rest of his attention to keeping those wickedly curved claws from taking a sizable chunk out of him. No other choice here but to keep running and hope he crashes into someone who knows how to kill or maim or otherwise get rid of this thing. Dignity be damned. Pride be damned. He lost all claims to pride the minute he started shrieking to help at the top of his goddamn lungs.

Speaking of which -

"Help!?"

Alex Kralie, the only man who can manage to make a desperate entreaty for aid sound utterly and deeply sarcastic.

February 9th; the Hide Behind

He's been camped in the same spot for hours. His palms are slick with sweat, his tongue stuck out between his teeth in concentration, hunched in scattered underbrush as he waits for the telltale rattle-hiss of the thing he knows is after him. Stalking him.

"Come on," he whispers, eyes narrowed at the empty air in front of him. "Come on, you stupid son of a bitch. I know you're out there. I heard you. I heard you. Come on out."

And so it goes, a quiet, ongoing litany as he waits and waits and waits and waits for the thing behind him to show its goddamn self. He's had enough of things he can't see. He's going to chase this one down, wallpaper every tree in the forest with its ugly mug.

There it is. The rattle. The click-clack-click of the beast drawing near.

Alex grins faintly, poised to spin around and catch it in the click and flash of a shutter. 1/500th of a second. That's all it'll take. Come on. Not so mysterious now, are you, Mr. Monster?

[ooc: prose or brackets are good, will match accordingly]

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Rattling noise, rattling noise. Philip goes over the monster collection in his head, as much as he can remember by heart, but rattling noise doesn't ring a bell. Because obviously it'd shake a rattle. Ha. Ha. Ha. --Anyway, nothing familiar he can recall.

"Haven't heard anything myself, so I guess it likes you more. Did you get a look at it, or was that why you went into ambush photography mode?"

"Nope. It's like it's always just behind me." Maybe that's what he'll call it. The "Right Behind You." Or, mmmm...nah. Doesn't have the right ring to it.

And because it's Philip, Alex shoots him a dry look. "And you can understand why that might be a problem for me."

Gotta say, it's refreshing knowing a guy who already knows the worst thing about you - or one of them, anyway. No stepping around the subject. Just honest, frank discussion. Mostly.

"Right, not the good kind of nostalgia."

Philip looks around. Not much he's seeing now, and not much he's seen or heard on the way here. As far as events go, this one's been tame to him, and if his new wallet stays the only victim-- But you never know about going out with a grand finale, and it probably doesn't hurt to check.

He pulls out his communication device. No static sound there, not that he'd expect it, but how's that for some vague sense of reassurance? ...Probably not much, not to worry, he might be able to do better.

"Hang on then, I know a guy who knows this place better."

And then he quickly starts typing a short message.

Alex is considerably less enthused to be consulting one of the Gravity Falls residents for help, mostly because a) he hates asking for help just like any young adult with an overdeveloped sense of masculine independence, and b) he's not really on the best terms with any of them. Except Mabel. Mabel's cool, though. Anyone who beats up unicorns is cool.

"Which guy? Mini-detective or sleazy salesman?" Kralie shorthand for Dipper or Stan. If he really has to choose he'd go with the former, since he's actually managed to keep a full conversation with him that didn't spiral down into trading barbed jibes and petty overcharging. "I mean, how many people are actually from here, anyway?"

Or sleazy-- Christ, come on now, that is just insulting. With the fake rattles and the- and all of the-- Philip huffs out a short breath.

"Even if I thought the latter could help, I doubt either of us could ever earn the money it'd take to get him to say something that's actually useful."

He shakes his head.

"Dipper. The mini-detective. It's--" Wait now, let him think about that for a second. "--Four, I think? There's him, his sister, the old guy, that guy's brother. Four that I know of. Guess they sell them in pairs."

Well, they're agreed on the former point at least.

"Stan has a brother?" That's news. God but Alex feels sorry for that family. It hasn't really occurred to him that Alex might be the truly difficult one in this situation. "Jeez. Wonderland must really dig the location."

Or he'd assume so, given that they're apparently in Gravity Falls right now. It's not helping Alex's case that the thing tailing him has elected to stay pretty silent, which just makes him seem aggressively paranoid.

"I think so. Could be off about it, but there's some scientist guy, didn't get here too long ago, said his name was Pines too-- and actually I thought that guy was called Stan, and the other--"

His comm device beeps. Just as well. He checks the message with an arched eyebrow.

"Whatever the old guy's name, he might be selling to the local wildlife, too..."

He tosses the phone at Alex, so he can get a look at the message. To think Philip might have to share his incredible death raising powers with an owl? A travesty! A complete and utter travesty!

How many Stans can one family have? How many Stans is too much? How much do you Stan - no, that's beside the point. Alex regards the response (ah yes, of course it's Dipper, of course it is) and arches an eyebrow, skeptical. An owl? Seriously?

"The Hide-Behind," he says dryly. "Real creative. Yeah, that's bullshit." He knows something has been following him. He can feel it in his intuition. He doesn't neglect his intuition. Usually. "There's something else out here. I haven't even seen an owl since ending up here."

Again his eyes fall on Philip's maracas, but he's not paranoid enough ~~yet~~ to assume the other guy's been lying to him about that one.

"Maybe Stan swiped their maracas for the resell value, and they migrated out of protest."

Philip gives the instruments a very solemn shake rattle rattle shake. See? He puts away his communication device. All right, fine, and the rattles too, they can stay at his belt.

"All right, so what's the next step in finding this thing?"

Because he's broke with absolutely nowhere to go, and nothing better to do whatsoever.

Maybe this is a two-man job. Alex looks at Philip speculatively.

"Well, I can already tell you that trying to catch it when it sneaks up behind you doesn't work." He's tried that about five times, and still zilch. Nothing but a crick in his neck and crushed dreams.

Maybe if he strapped the camera to the back of his head -

Which would look fucking stupid. Now, if he strapped the camera to the back of Philip's head?

"You feel like maybe duct-taping this to the back of your head?" He says dryly, jiggling the camera in his hand.

Philip stares at Alex wordlessly for a long time.

( A very long time. )

Then he shrugs, turns around, and straightens his sweater.

"All right, if that's your brilliant plan, knock yourself out."

"Woah, what, really?" Alex blinks in surprise. After that lengthy silence he'd expected some kind of deadpan retort or impending snark-off, but nope.

"Well, uh." Haha, fun story, Alex has nothing on him but the clothes on his back and his stupid little camera. "Do you...have duct tape? Or anything?"

Either way, having duct tape in your hair doesn't sound very fun. Like, at all.

Philip glances over his shoulder.

"Really?" He turns around, eyebrow arched all over again. "Really?"

He crosses his arms.

"You come up with a plan like that, and then you can't even spring for the bloody duct tape? I'm giving you a D- in your conspiracy journalism class, just so you know."

Philip shakes his head. This would be a good moment to drop it, but he still hasn't got anything better to do, and now he might as well be in it to win it. He very unceremoniously reaches underneath his sweater, and rips off part of his shirt. Twists and knots the tatters into as thin and durable a piece of rope as he can.

"All right, so here's the back-up plan: I make this into an unfashionable communication device necklace, and hang it from the back of my neck. I'll start the feed, and you can watch it on your end while we walk."

"Stan doesn't like me," Alex says easily. "He was overcharging. Like hell I'm gonna spend a hundred-ninety on a fucking roll of duct tape."

Never mind that this money is probably some kind of impermanent fixture for the duration of this event or some shit. It's the principle of the thing, okay? Conceding to Stan's stupidly outrageous prices is like acknowledging he wins, and you can pry Alex's pride from his cold dead fingers.

"Hey man, if you're cool with it, I'm cool with it." Dr. Phil can fiddle around with his disposable shirts all he likes. He clicks on his own device - aw shit, it's still futzing around with the stupid static like a pain in the ass - and gives it a couple shakes. The picture'll clear up. Eventually. Maybe.

It's a liberating feeling, the first time you realise that Good Quality Menswear At A Reasonable Price can go screw itself, because magic will let you stock up as often as you need. Philip ties the abominable contraption around his neck, and walks a few experimental steps.

"You getting a decent picture with this?"

He walks around some more, just to see how the device sits and fits - which is well enough, for a makeshift surveillance necklace.

"By the way, if it does turn out to be just an owl with maracas, then you owe me. Big time."

"Good as it's gonna get." He has to squint, but he's used to that. He has to shake it from time to time, but he's also used to that. Living with an electrostatic field around yourself is a fucking pain, but he is also used to that.

"I'll be sure to fork over all of my not-money if that's the case," he says dryly. "You can buy yourself some ghoul-raising panflutes and start a band."

"Don't think I won't. Get the old band back together, play under your room all night. Maybe invite some owls to carry the speakers right up to your window."

Like a Disney princess you wanted to strangle a lot. Note to self: Ask which room Alex is camping in these days, anyway.

Philip looks around, between the way he came, and every other path that's in sight.

"All right, lead the way."

"Wonderland could use more music venues. Spice up the place, you know."

He picks a pretty random path - no harm or foul if they get lost, right? This is all temporary - and keeps a sharp eye out, both on his surroundings and the device in his hand. No way that thing is sneaking up behind him like this. It's foolproof!

So he jumps a little bit when the next chittering noise comes from somewhere to his far left, which is not behind him but decidedly out of view of their makeshift live feed.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he hisses, heart thumping.

"You're joking, but now that you mention it I'm actually surprised nobody's tried that one in a while. People have been doing weirder things to pass the time here. Pretty sure there's still an art gallery sitting around somewhere on--"

Philip flinches. Probably wouldn't have from the sound alone, but that sort of surprise is a chain reaction. And actually- surprise, that's the key, he almost didn't expect to see or hear anything. Huh.

"Huh." He looks around warily, trying to figure out exactly where that just came from. And if something else is about to come at them from the same direction. "Somehow I've got a hard time believing that that was owls. Even musical ones."

Yeah, see, he's being dealing with this for hours now, so Dipper's theory that it's just some maraca-bearing owl is, scientifically speaking, complete bullshit.

"Fucking - and it just keeps moving." This time it came from the side, which fucking blows because it means it could come from literally anywhere. Guess that puts a nail in the coffin of this little set-up, which turned out to be entirely useless.

All right, all right, not too bad. It's actually getting to be a bit eerie.

"So the way I see it we've got two options: a.) Tape cameras to our entire bodies and hold hands while walking back to back or b.) Graciously accept defeat, head back to the Mystery Rip-Off Bin, and steal some of the old guy's overpriced stuff."

Philip votes b, if that even needs to be said.

Alex isn't one to just give up, not particularly. But he's also not gonna waste his time searching for something that clearly doesn't want to be found. He's been down that rabbit hole, so to speak, and it never ends well. For anyone.

"All right," he sighs, shaking his head in defeat. He shoves his phone back into his pocket. "Yeah. You know what - yeah. Let's steal some shit from Stan."

"That's the spirit."

Philip likes to hear it, honestly. Not to turn down a wild goose chase lightly, but Wonderland's usually got enough weirdness that finds them, without needing to sign up for an extra plate to boot. He peels off his camera set-up, and starts heading back towards the shack.

"We'll be sure to get you a shiny pair of maracas, too. Can't have you feeling left out with me and the creepy stalker owls."

let us fade into the night you and i

rosswood - 2016-04-25 19:54 (UTC) - Expand

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'cause you thought you'd escaped

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oh my god

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annnnnd fade again?

let us fade into the night you and i