Oh, he very much is. He can grow past them, but they do tend to stick, especially if they’re reinforced later on in some way or another (i.e. Bill attempting to resurrect through Ian, using Ian’s blanket humanity as a way to get close enough to strike Dipper where it would hurt). In a way, it’s another example of how human he is: once bitten, twice shy, and the negative tends to make a greater impact on the mind than the positive.
Alcor grinned. This was it, this was the moment he could finally see Toby’s true colors! The kid had been leaving often in the middle of the night, sneaking through the window. Was he attending cult meetings like so many of his preincarnations? Did it matter? Alcor knew he was going to turn out bad, knew it was only a matter of time.
And tonight his suspicions were about to be proved correct.
Before leaving, Toby took a small sack. Alcor hadn’t looked in since he became aware of it, wanting it to be a surprise. As usual, Toby went out the window and onto the branch of the tree on the front lawn. From there it was down the street and… oh.
Just round the corner was the cult Alcor demolished today! So the kid was in a cult – a bad one too, with particularly greedy members. Oh this was going to be sweet, oh the look on Toby’s face when he realizes he been caught, when he-
He was walking right past the house. Dang it. Two houses away, Toby stopped and headed into a vacant lot.
What? Was this some meeting place? Alcor looked for life and found
No. God damn it Toby!
“Are you SERIOUS?” Toby yelped, and the strays that had gathered around the sack of food scattered.
“I can explain! I mean, I, oh, oh I’m so sorry, but you’d get upset and I thought that it would be okay if I did it when you weren’t looking because they’ve got no one and I’ve got you and they’re just these poor little strays I know I should have asked but I didn’t want you to be unhappy I’m so sorry…”
As Toby went on to break records for apologizing, Alcor was mentally slamming his head into a wall because are you doing this to screw with me you can’t keep this act up forever. Alcor sighed and said
“It’s alright kid, jeez. Just stop going out in the middle of the night – you don’t know what’s out there.”
Made for Alcor_Pine’s OfficalAlcor(not really) askblog, thought you might like them.
yeah so Maddie made her and Toby pillow-case stockings.
Had this really bizarre idea of there being a whole bunch of “Alcor’s precious people as Disney characters” movies and to Dipper’s surprise, many of them end up being accurate to the way he actually views the people involved. Like Mizar is his sisterly protectorate who ends up with The Woodsman and Gliese is his niece/godchild. There’s even one at one point where a character based on Toby follows a similar path to Toby himself: viewed as a threat at first by Alcor, then tentatively placed under Alcor’s care after he realizes how helpless the kid is, then “touch this kid and you die!” and finally performs a Heroic Sacrifice (that in the movie, doesn’t stick) to save Mizar, the closest thing the character has to a sister.
Dipper isn’t sure whether he should freak out or break into tears of joy that they finally got it right.
Might get around to writing these at some point but anyone else who likes this concept feel free to come up with your own ideas. Would love to see what others come up with.
“Indeed it has, Miss Roswell. A couple of
years, I think?” Dipper smiled as he reached out and shook the hand of Maddie’s
homeroom teacher. He liked her. She was young, but very good at her job. Not
too cosy with the students to teach effectively, and still friendly enough to
let each student feel like they were heard.
Or, they thought he was. He had never
really gotten the chance to remember his own birthday, so while he had an
official date, that being the date Alcor picked him off the streets, they could
not be sure how close it was to the real one. They had also just kind of
assumed he was eight years old when he was… adopted, because that seemed most
likely, all things considered. In fact, he might very well not be thirteen yet.
Regardless of that, officially, he was
thirteen, and for the first time in his life, he had an allowance.
The really strange thing is that Dipper doesn’t even remember getting the damn thing. One day nothing, the next minute there’s a weird naked water lizard thing smiling at him and blowing bubbles.
(Dipper doesn’t pay it much thought after that. It’s not important)
At some point after Toby’s been living with Alcor for a while, a thought sneaks its way into his head.
It comes at a time when Alcor is pretty fully cemented in Toby’s heart as a father figure (though Toby’s still very careful to never be too explicit about that in Alcor’s presence), and Alcor has told him at least the cliffs-notes version of how he came to be (used to be a human, then Bill happened and now demon).
It starts off small. Probably influenced from having watched a few Disney movies and getting certain tropes established in his mind. But whatever the influence, it’s there, and he can’t help but entertain it…and it keeps growing louder and louder in his head until he starts to seriously wonder…
…Maybe…if I can just be good enough…if I can show him how much I love him…it could undo what Cipher did…
…and Alcor could become human again.
Magic is a real thing, after all. Even after over a millennium since the Transcendence, new discoveries regarding it are still being made, and it’s far from an exact science. Who’s to say it couldn’t work like that in this particular case?
(He never asks Alcor about it, because, well, it’d be like voicing a birthday wish. Plus, Alcor might take it the wrong way, see it as Bill’s influence breaking through, looking for a way to weaken him and take his power back.)
On some level, he always knows that this fantasy is just that. He knows. But…he can’t help imagining the scenario, in quiet moments alone in his room with nothing to distract him. He sees himself giving Alcor the most sincere hug he can muster, and Alcor’s demonic countenance sloughing off like a snakeskin and dissolving in a shower of gold glitter, leaving only the human form that he takes on in public, only this time it’s real. He pictures Alcor – Tyrone? – slowly remembering how to move in a body that isn’t a construct of his mind, reveling in the feel of actual breathing, of having a real heartbeat for the first time in ages. His eyes, brown-on-white instead of gold-on-black, are wide with awe and relief, no longer filled with horrors and nightmares and pain.
He imagines how happy Alcor would be. Because he’s seen so many glimpses of the deep, soul-numbing pain Alcor deals with; and no matter how many times Alcor insists he not take the blame for his past life Toby still feels responsible, and he wants desperately to do something to heal it. To repay Alcor for everything he’s done for him. He deserves to be happy, after centuries of suffering.
Maybe this is why God sent my soul back, in this life specifically. Maybe it wasn’t a punishment. Maybe it’s a chance to make amends for what Cipher did. To fix everything.
And then he’d be your real dad, the thoughts run to conclusion before Toby can stop them. Then he would love you back and everything would be perfect and we’d live happily ever after. He smothers those thoughts as soon as he recognizes them, because if this is going to be at all a possibility then he can’t be selfish about it, he can’t, it can’t be about Toby’s happiness it has to be all about Alcor. It has to be about atonement, not reward. Thoughts like that could ruin everything.
(So if he hasn’t turned back yet, that means you’re still being too selfish. You’re still not being good enough.)
As he gets older and wiser, the idea gradually intrudes on Toby’s thoughts less and less. He recognizes it for the childish wish-fulfillment fantasy that it always was, and focuses his mental energy instead on just living his life, trying to be as good a person as possible, and doing whatever is realistically within his power to help give Alcor whatever happiness he can in this life.
But even as an adult, it never completely goes away. It niggles at him in quiet, quickly-ignored moments, insistently whispering that he just needs to be a little bit better, and the power of love will break his past life’s evil curse and give his father the happy ending he deserves…
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