ghostharasser | Open Post

[Well then. Concerning.]

[Maybe it's time to do a little external research on Amity Park. He has a laptop, obviously, because he's in school and needs one but time to do a little hunting around abut Amity Park and it's residents. What can he get his hands on?]

[Dipper will easily turn up a number of small social media accounts belonging to current or former Amity Park residents. It'll take some digging back in time through most of them to turn up anything about ghosts, but sure enough, once you go back about three years there is SO much talk about ghost attacks.

And it's consistent.

Some names and descriptions come up multiple times. "Skulker." "Technus." "That robot hunter guy." "The crazy tech ghost." But there's one that stands above the rest -

"Phantom."

Photos, when there are any, are blurry and janky. Phantom has a black and white and sometimes ecto-green theme going on, that much is clear, but surviving photos of him don't have a clear look at his features. (There's a suspicious number of photos that appear to have been deleted, however...) The discussion on this particular ghost seems to consist of a) a fanclub swooning over him, or b) various people arguing over whether he's a menace or a hero.

There's a large number of deleted comments from one "WWeston" that are consistently replied to with annoyed skepticism. Occasionally, the replies will have been deleted as well.

And, strangely... not a whole lot of talk about ecto-contamination itself. Certainly there's some chatter about how crazy the Fentons are and whether their inventions even work, but Dipper might only see a small handful of posts along the lines of people noticing someone's eyes glowing slightly, or photos someone posted of their sharper than normal canine teeth. Followed by one or two people assuring them that's just normal in Amity Park now.]

[This is all very fascinating. Dipper does do individual searches for each of these named ghosts, and tries to find as much individual information as possible. A picture of Skulker strikes him as strangely familiar but he isn't sure where or how.]

[WWeston, though. He wonders if that brings up any kind social media he can contact. Maybe an Instagrab or FaceNook account.]

[The Flitter account Dipper originally found hasn't updated in years - but it sure does have links to an empty Instagrab on its profile, and through that a FaceNook that still looks active.

Wes Weston, huh. Apparently he's also currently attending college - journalism major, looks like - albeit much closer to Amity Park itself, still in the same state. At a glance, the posts all look pretty normal. Of course... less normal conversations wouldn't be left out in the open by anyone with half a brain cell.

There are plenty of photos - something the guy is really into, it seems, and he's a pretty damn good shot too. Some of the landscape shots are downright gorgeous. It's easy enough to identify Wes, a guy with grungy red hair and a goatee, tall and lean and sharp eyed.

Maybe a little too sharp eyed. As Dipper comes across some shots of Wes in dimmer light, he might notice there's a hint of a glow in those eyes, bringing them from a fairly normal mossy green to more of a gleaming seaglass green where they catch the light. Not ecto green, quite, but definitely not normal either.]

[Interesting, interesting. Dipper can appreciate a love of photography. Probably it would have been something he’d gone into had he not been such a math-nerd. Either way, he …]

[He spends about thirty minutes recovering his FaceNook account because he logs into it once a year at best, but after that he shoots the guy a DM. A quick introduction to who he is, that he was interested in writing a paper on Amity Park, and was reaching out to some people who lived there for information.]

[There, if he hears nothing back, he’ll shrug it off. If he gets a response, he will see what he can learn!]

[He gets a DM back within half an hour, which is startlingly fast. Especially considering that it reads...]

Bullshit. You haven't reached out to anyone but me and haven't logged into your account in over a year. You're lucky you appear to be a real person, or I would have just blocked you. I do, however, see that you attend the same school as Fenton, so. What is this really about, Mason Pines?

[Wow, damn, okay. They're cooking with gas, after all. Dipper can't even be offended by the response because it means this guy really IS a lead that he might get some useful info out of, and probably isn't going to yank his chain.]

Okay, first off, I know using my real name was to drive a point home but it's Dipper, and you've got me. Color me impressed!

I have concerns about ecto-contamination and I've been told some interesting details about Amity Park by my roomate. Only, I'm pretty sure he's not being totally honest about everything, so I'm just here to make sure nothing crazy is about to happen on campus.

If you're as good as you seem, I'm sure you've already done research on me and my family, yeah? I have reasons to be worried.

Bingo. You've got a point, but if I were you, I'd give up hoping for "nothing crazy."

Your device does video?

[HMM. A suspicion he had that he isn't super happy to be correct about but, let's try and learn more, then.]

Yep, one sec. Gotta sound proof the room first. My roomate should be pretty occupied in the other room.

[About ten minutes later, another DM]

Ready.

[As soon as Dipper gives the okay, he receives a DM with nothing but a link. It's not to any video call service he'll recognize - something privately owned? The domain name is "toofine." Huh.

But, sure enough, should he click it it'll open up a video call in as professional a quality as any big name. The video pops open to Wes sitting at a desk in a dim room, not much behind him visible. Yep, the eyeglow is here too, if you know to look for it. He seems to give Dipper a once over, then nods.]

All right, you pass. You're really that kid from all those Gravity Falls newspaper articles that get passed around on paranormal sites, huh? What exactly did you wanna know about ecto contamination?

[It's like a mutual once over, honestly. Like two weird birds sizing each other up.]

[Anyway Wes will also see that behind Dipper, his room is still kind of in disarray from his VCR exorcism, but there's plenty in the room that give way that Dipper is just as much up to the same kind of stuff as he was in all those newspapers. There's a series of magic symbols tapped across the way. His sound proofing!]

Well, you've told me something interesting without meaning to, in that you mentioned my roomate by name before I even volunteered much aside from wanting to look into Amity Park, so that already tells me he's downplaying or obfuscating what he's told me.

He made a point to say that town wide ecto-contamination was a big deal and a lot of the people there have really worrisome side effects as a result. Lots of people with funny ghost-like abilities.

If that were true, I think the level of contamination would stay mostly consistent around the dorms but I just did a reading and it skyrocketed almost overnight. I'm starting to think something big might be about to happen and I'd like to be prepared for it.

So it IS Fenton. I fucking knew it.

[Wes smacks his fist into his desk, turning and standing up from his chair as he drags a hand through his hair. He continues talking as he goes over to the far side of his room, slightly out of frame - his mic was a small wireless one clipped to the collar of his flannel shirt.]

The contamination is a thing, yeah. Most of us just have glowy eyes or slightly pointy ears or something though. Fenton is a whole other can of ghost worms.

[He's now pulling something into the frame that Dipper will probably immediately recognize as a corkboard or some other type of display on wheels. There's a sheet draped over it.]

BUT, that guy's already gotten enough grief from me, so there's things I'm not gonna tell you either. No idea about your extra ecto anyway - I'm a journalist, not an ecto-scientist. What I can tell you?

[Wes tugs the sheet off, revealing a corkboard STUFFED with photos, articles, post it notes, and loads and loads of multicolored strings. He leans down to grin into the camera as he snaps a telescoping pointer out to its full length.]

How's a brief history of Amity Park's ghost attacks sound?

[Yeah that. Is NOT going to be brief.]

That's pretty consistent with what I read about Amity Park, so I thought the vast discrepancy in Danny's story was awfully suspicious. I'll give it to him, the man's one of the worst liars I've ever encountered. I bet he's awful at poker.

[Note to self, play poker with Danny and see how much he can win off of him.]

[Anyway when Wes gets up and just has a full ass corkboard ready to show, Dipper sits up in his chair and leans forward like someone showed him the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.]

Dude, are you kidding? You've got me for- uh.

[He checks his watch.]

Approximately 45 minutes, which is when his Space Documentary ends.

[Anyway, he's got his pen out and the journal is on the table. Give him all the deets!!!]

[Wes snorts at Dipper's comment about Danny's terrible attempts to lie.]

Man, you don't know the half of it.

...I can do 45 minutes.

[Dipper's excitement is infectious and Wes can only grin wider. A timeframe is perfect, and if it's some dumb show about space, he knows for a fact Danny will be glued to it until the end of the credits. So he launches right into it.

Dipper is treated to an enthusiastic and often first-hand account of almost everything - how ghosts began appearing when the Fentons got their portal working, the appearance of Phantom, all of the major conflicts that took place in town. Wes speaks of Phantom with both annoyance and begrudging appreciation, and he clearly doesn't have the whole story on several incidents, but Danny's two best friends seem awfully involved a lot of the time. Past the first year or so Wes gets slightly more vague on the accounts, but notes that from that point ghost attacks began to wane as Phantom established his territory and strength. By the end of what would have been Danny's senior year in high school, there were barely any, and some of the regular troublemakers had become more like local minor celebrities when they showed up. (Well, Ember McLain is decidedly less minor of a celebrity, but still.) Additionally, both Danny's parents and the other local ghost hunter, the Red Huntress, had stopped hunting ghosts indiscriminately and instead begun working towards less violent types of research and even cooperation.

However you slice it, it's obvious enough that Amity Park must in fact be highly saturated in ectoplasm. That portal was either just left open or prone to opening on its own far too often, to say nothing of the incident where an evil Ghost King pulled the entire town into the Ghost Zone. Like, no wonder this dude's eyes glow. The question, of course, remains about Danny - who Wes neglected to mention slightly too often, perhaps.]

[And Dipper to his credit, listens with rapt attention, pausing only to take notes here and there, clarify a detail, poke a bit at something that seems left vague on purpose to see if Wes will give him a little more, and then of course, to check the time.]

[But it's all really interesting information. He keeps a tree of important names, he does a few sketches if some of the photos that he's able to make out. He thinks by the end of it, Dipper has a pretty good scope of the picture minus of course ...one thing.]

[He has noticed Danny's lack of mention despite this entire thing seemingly centered around him. That tells him more than Wes might realize. It tells him that there is a lot that lots of people aren't willing to tell him, and thus makes the Danny Situation all the more curious. He also picks up on something else.]

[That tone that Wes talks about Phantom is pretty close to how he talks about Danny. Hmhmhm.]

[Dipper's alarm goes off, and he pauses to look back towards his bedroom door.]

--Okay, I think we should wrap this up, but you've given me a ton to work with. Whatever's gearing up to happen, I can at least start making plans.

[He shuts his journal.]

I owe you big time so hit me up if you ever need anything weird dealt with that isn't Amity Park flavored.

Huh. I'll hold you to that.

[No need to exchange further contact info - if Wes can do anything, it's find someone. Especially someone whose IP address has now been logged on Foley's network.]

Thanks for letting me ramble about an old passion; hope it helps whatever nonsense Fenton manages to attract. Oh, and... hit me back up if you figure anything out, all right?

[Wes's satisfied smirk widens to a conspiratorial grin as he winks at the camera, and then the feed cuts.

Well then.

Meanwhile, the credits of the documentary have just finished, and if Dipper's soundproofing only works one way he'll be able to hear his roommate getting up and wandering into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge.]

[He already suspects he might have figured something out, just from that admission, but He just nods.]

Sure thing, man. It was super interesting.

[He logs off and takes note of Danny's shuffling around. Ah well, time to finish what he was working on. He gets up and grabs the VCR off the ground and heads out of his room.]

Was it good?

Got kinda sad at the end, but otherwise, yeah!

[Danny's squirting a packet of ectoplasm into a bottle of soda as he speaks, which he then re-closes and shakes vigorously. Dipper's seen him do this before by now - the ecto cancels out the carbonation, somehow. It's perhaps a little scientifically worrying, actually.]

So, what's up with your remote-eating VCR? It's not haunted, I'd be able to tell.

[Huh, how does a space documentary get s- oh right Apollo 13. Cough, anyway. Dipper watches him make ecto-soda and does remember the first time he saw him do this and the sheer panic he felt before Danny told him it cancelled out the carbonation. Weird!!!]

Oh, this? It was trying to bite students down in the AV room. It was under some kind of curse, but it wasn't anything too complicated to break. I'm about bring it back to them and maybe do some looking around to figure out who might be putting curses on electronics like that.

[He tucks it under his arm and waves a hand.]

I think we can probably rule out Shots!Wizard, but who knows what else might be lurking on campus.

Edited 2024-09-02 05:23 (UTC)

A curse? What, was someone trying to recreate The Ring or something?

[Danny takes a swig of the ecto-soda - it still tastes kinda carbonated, but that has more to do with the ectoplasm's acidic zest than anything else.]

Yeah, Shots!Wizard is too chill for that shit. My money's on the most unassuming person possible.

[It....... absolutely has not occurred to Danny that cursed objects should probably not be a normal college experience. He was already slightly too used to this stuff, and then his roommate turned out to be like, a paranormal obsessed warlock or something. What do you mean the majority of the world doesn't think the supernatural is even real?]

I would trust Shots!Wizard with my life, and I don't say that lightly about wizards.

[He's just a chill guy who wants to have a good time and is able to smuggle them in mysterious amounts of alcohol despite like half their floor being under 21.]

But yeah, so the magical theory behind curses are that they are an expulsion of negative energy. To create them, you are putting something nasty out into the world and hopefully warping it for your ends. Their intentions are usually to do outward destruction in some way, though the definition of "destruction" can be a little ambiguous depending on who you ask.

[Haha what a concept, living in a blissfully ignorant existence where one is capable of having no clue about the supernatural.]

That is to say, someone did this on purpose to try and do something probably to someone and even if this seemed mostly harmless, it's hard to figure out the scope of their intentions until I do some snooping. Best to stop it before it escalates and find out what's going on.

[That sure was a whole lot of magic nerd ramble. It really is impossible for him to turn it off. Danny doesn't seem too bothered though, so hopefully that was fine. He will head to the door.]

Well! Don't wait up. I've got about seven hours before the tank runs dry and I crash so I better make the best of it.

Not hearing anything that doesn't implicate the most unassuming person possible! But yeah, that tracks.

[Curses cast by ghosts work much the same way, so it's not unfamiliar territory. He's pretty sure there hasn't been any ghost activity aside from himself around here though, so hey, might as well let Dipper do his investigation. Either way, Danny is more than used to the magic nerd rambles by now, and simply waves Dipper off with a smirk.]

I got a couple of classes anyway, go do your thing.

[Dipper's been pretty good about getting back home before he crashes, so Danny's not worried. ...Of course, he likes the guy, and his nature won't let him not keep an eye out for his friends, so he'll probably be checking the clock anyway...]

[When does Dipper find time to go to classes- that is the bigger mystery of all of this. (He has a lot of wavers in place because of his nightmare problem so he does a lot of stuff online despite still being on campus.)]

I'll let you know when I figure out who it is, just so you know how right you were. Watch your phone.

[But he will give him a salute and head out the door.]

[He sets a timer, too, just in case. It's easy to lose track of time when he gets into an investigation, and he suspects he might be all over. Mabel has a timer set too, because she comes and helps him for a bit but then has to head off.]

[Seven hours come and go. On approaching the eighth, Danny gets a text from Mabel.]

Hey, have you heard from brobro? He's not answering his phone. :( :( :(

Edited 2024-09-02 19:30 (UTC)

[Danny squints at the text, looks at the time on his phone, then immediately slaps his forehead.]

no dont worry ill go find him, probably passed out somewhere near the apartment lol

[What he's not saying, of course, is that it's honestly not that hard for a half ghost to find Dipper. The guy doesn't trip his ghost sense, sure, but once he started paying attention to Dipper's particular brand of weird eldritch nonsense, Danny had quickly realized that it had its own tug on his awareness. It took concentration to track, but track it he could.

...and it was usually easier to do things like that as Phantom. Danny sighs as he slips his phone back in his pocket. He really didn't want to ever go ghost while at college, but at best Dipper had just conked out somewhere random, and at worst he'd invoked the wrath of whoever was casting curses and was in real trouble. Danny's not about to take half measures (ha) when it comes to bailing out his friends.

So, time to fly around invisible it is. He changes quickly - his Phantom outfit includes a bit more than just the hazmat suit now, a black and white hooded jacket with neon green accents appearing as well. In an instant, he's vanished and flown off through the wall, focusing on that familiar sense of not-quite-right that Dipper exudes.]

Okay plz let me know!! When i saw him last, he was checking out the east part of campus, u know the part under renovations or some junk?? said the trail was that way.

[Mabel is gonna go do her own thing right now which is prepare plan B magic. No one wants to know what that might entail. She is also waiting to contact their uncles because a Pines going missing is a big deal, however, Dipper's pride would wither if someone called the family on him and she knows this. Hhhh hopefully Danny's right.]

[He isn't. As it turns out, there is a collection of abandoned buildings in the east campus. Some have been renovated but some haven't, and still sit in disrepair, condemned to years of poor maintenence. It's a pretty creepy place, to be honest. The air is still, the vibes atrocious, and there's something deeply liminal about it.]

[A ghost who can just go through walls has a much easier time navigating this, but the eeriness is probably still palpable. It's not a ghost spooky, it's a Something Else spooky.]

[So in a room that was definitely a closet once, that opens up into another strange, secret room, there is Dipper. He's tied up from the ceiling by his arms, unconscious, with his clothes singed and burned and bloody. At his feet is a containment circle and his shadow...]

[His shadow is alive and it is writhing and convulsing like it's trying to escape the circle. Hands form out of it as if to claw at the invisible barrier, while some attempt to cling to Dipper's legs. Overall it's a pretty spooky sight!!]

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