Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Epilogue
Warning for gore/eye trauma/slight body horror, discussion of suicide, and pure, unadulterated, edible cheese product.
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Blood spattered, bright and glittering, across the symbol wheel.
I have many. Beware.
– Belle spends an hour in the bathroom and then comes out looking almost exactly the same as she did when she went in, except maybe with some searingly bright eyeshadow on and a scrunchie in her hair. She spends most of that time lip-synching to old pop songs in the mirror.
– Onika spends an hour in the bathroom but every second of that time is used strategically in deploying a beauty routine that shows exactly the kind of meticulous thought and planning and steady hand that has also made her a fearsome competitor on the international amateur combat-robotics circuit.
– Lionel showers in five minutes and makes a half-hearted attempt to clean his glasses.
– Mike spends half an hour trying to put on his leg without making something explode.
– Alice spends all her time trying to pick out an outfit and then slaps on some mascara and runs out the door with a piece of toast in her mouth.
– Mira takes fifteen minutes to wash her face, brush her teeth, put on makeup and choose an outfit, and then spends twenty minutes trying to decide which contacts to wear and trying to put on false lashes without stabbing herself in the eye.
– Sun-mi spends an hour contouring and highlighting and then goes ‘fuck it’ and throws on a giant scarf and a beanie and big coat because fashion? Annoying body-form underthings? Those are for days when she doesn’t have Serious Work to do. And you never know when you’re going to have to run away from security guards or climb an electric fence in this business. Can’t have your movement restricted by the modern-day equivalent of corsetry and garters.
– Rosa carefully selects one of the eight thousand red lipsticks from her collection and wastes fifteen minutes making kissy faces in the mirror. The poor person fixing her hair for the day has to try to manouever around her primping and posing, and it does not help that Rosa literally always ends up taking over hair duty herself because none of these people can get it just right.
– Ian realises that the sun is coming up for the second time in a day, thinks about going to bed for about half a second, and decides against it.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Epilogue
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Mira hadn’t said anything since they’d left the room where Henry’s soul had been imprisoned, and Dipper was starting to worry. He’d expected her to ask where he was leading her, how he knew where to go, what (though maybe this was his guilt talking) he’d done to Henry’s soul, but she’d been silent. And sure, it made it easier to concentrate on following the wireless signals the security cameras were projecting back to the control centre, where, he was sure, he’d also find the source of the wards that were hampering his omniscience – and a way to break them – but Dipper didn’t really need to concentrate. The power that he’d gained from – from eating Henry’s soul was still flooding through him and lighting up every supernatural sense like fireworks. He felt like he could rip this entire place straight out of the earth and launch it into space without breaking a sweat, and he probably could, too.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a feast like this, so much pain and fear and the power that came from breaking the unnatural bonds that had chained the soul to their previous life even after they’d been severed from it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this strong, this capable, this absolutely overflowing. He could do whatever he wanted, and nothing and no one would be able to stop him.
It made Dipper want to throw up.
Guys, Mod M is going to blow your pants off with this chapter.
And stomp on your heart.
And then blow your minds too
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve
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The summer Ian had turned fourteen, one of the artists his mother represented had gone triple platinum, a record-breaking heatwave had hit the West Coast, and Ian had tried to kill himself.
RIP all the other mods because MARY fucking killed us
It used to be common place to find Ian Beale doing weird shit after a certain amount of time without sleep. Rosa was used to it, after years of finding him in his room with rope wrapped up his arms to see how long it took the circulation to cut off or testing how long he could touch his eyeball or cut off his gag reflex. The “smoothies” she’d seen him consume in this state were enough to make a competitive eater gag.
But since college had dropped the work bomb on him his focus always turned to the things he needed to get done rather than the various ways he could test his human fragility. That continued past college as he got into storyboarding. And without him noticing it passed for the entirety of the time he had known Mira without a single incident. Which was probably why it was so jarring when he found himself suddenly between shows.
Of COURSE Invader Peri hadn’t been exactly what most parents would have considered “Child Friendly” and MAYBE that finale episode where they literally killed Santa Claus had been a little much, especially with the organs falling from the sky like some rainstorm of horror.
Ian was still baffled at how few storyboard revisions there had been for that compared to other shows. But, regardless of the circumstances, it stood that he was stuck waiting on a call and until that call came (next week, they had estimated) he was inching closer and closer to that point of boredom.
Which brought Mira to this point as she came into the apartment, greeting her boyfriend as she sat down a couple of shopping bags. After a moment of silence she heard a sharp intake of breath, drawing her attention to the chair where he was sitting.
She wasn’t seeing this correctly, was she? “Ian… why are you eating teaspoons of hot sauce?” Mira asked.
Ian grinned at her, words coming slowly around his numbed tongue. “Because. Life is short and pain is hilarious, Stardust.”
—
The first oneshot that actually comes out halfway decent in years and what is it? Transcendence AU Fanfiction. Of course. I love Ian and Mira. They’re probably my faves out of the entire AU and Mod M wants to rip my heart out with them. So a little bit of lighthearted Bipper-ing out of Ian came across my mind to distract from the crippling hurt of Reincarnation Blues.
Quick water color sketch of Ian Beale from marypsue’s fic Reincarnation Blues (which is super duper good!!!)
Stylized Ian from the last chapter of this TAU fic, because I apparently enjoy drawing characters going through emotional turmoil, and also because Mod M is a brilliant writer.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven
(Special thanks to seiya234 for letting me use her as a resource on anxiety and dissociation! Speaking of which, most of the warnings from Chapter Seven apply. This is not going to be pretty, folks.)
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Ian wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find beyond the door he’d been driven through, but it definitely wasn’t something that looked like a cross between a doctor’s office and a forensics lab, into which someone was moving a wizard’s workshop piece by piece.
MOD M’S REIGN OF TERROR BEGINS
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten
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The heat hit Mira like a wall.
She coughed, the mask making it rattle, and, as soon as she’d remembered where all her limbs were and how they worked (being magically and atomically disassembled and popped halfway across the country could leave a girl a little disoriented), fanned herself with the hand that wasn’t holding her bat. “I really don’t know what I expected from the desert,” she sighed to herself.
Beside her, and behind her, and above her, Alcor was flicking around like a hummingbird searching for a flower, batwings whirring excitedly. He reached out and plucked a gold-and-black telescope from seemingly thin air, though Mira noticed that a hook that looked suspiciously like it had been yanked from the wrist of a very long-dead pirate was dangling from its middle, and held it to one eye. “I don’t see an entrance anywhere, do you?”
Mod M will kill us all
This scene from Reincarnation Blues cracks me up. Alcor’s reaction seems to come out of nowhere, what does poor Ian think?
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