This fic is technically being posted for the 2nd year anniversary ficathon, though it was started well before that.
It's a combination of 3 prompts off the transcendence-au .tumblr .com blog:
post/110949675487/hc-that-everyone-dipper-cares-about-has-a-symbol
post/142796865175/re-alcors-wheel-maybe-it-cant-be-used-to-hurt
post/141750826113/tau-prompt-someone-is-trying-to-collect-all-the
Over the years, Dipper came into contact with hundreds of souls. Some he met for a fleeting moment, the length of a summons only and forgotten almost as soon as he'd returned to the Mindscape. Other he only knew briefly for one short lifetime, losing touch after that lifetime ended. But there were others he would search out again and again, during his times of humanity, for that tenuous connection, that love and friendship that helped him remember himself.
There were times it worked...better than others. No matter how much he and a soul may have loved each other in one lifetime, they weren't always so accepting the next. Still, he kept trying, and met even more souls in the process. Not always deep or more than passing connections, but connections even so, and some meant more to him than he could ever express.
As Dipper grew more powerful, formed more relationships, his circle grew more complex. The Cult of Dippingsauce circle stayed fairly simple, as did the one he designed eventually for the Circle of the Dreamer's Star, and the one he still kept for friends or family, but those were special exceptions.
Though he did still also make exceptions for children's summons. They couldn't quite draw the circle properly, but when he remembered himself, then they were treated kindly, given a lecture on demon summoning, and then made a deal with. When he was more demonic, well...he was still kind to them, but it was more a demon kindness, creepy and off and wrong, but he wasn't cruel. It was one of the few things he could be grateful for when he remembered himself, that he was still kind to the children even when out of his mind.
People he wanted to remember, whose souls he wanted to find again and again, had symbols added to the circle as the years passed. Not everyone got a symbol – his circle only had so much room on it before things got a little ridiculous – but the ones closest to him did.
Besides, there was the ultra-complex circle that was only for the most formal of summons, the ones that tricked people into thinking it would bind him somehow by virtue of being so intricate, that he could add everyone's symbols to so it would be even more complicated. Some people frankly deserved having to draw a hundred symbols to call up a demon. Maybe give them time to think about what they were doing.
Not that they needed to know what all the symbols meant in order to draw it. He kept the symbols in his room of memories and he would be surprised if anyone ever actually managed to dig the whole thing up, let alone find out what they represented.
As for the people whose symbols were on the main circle – in general, he had only had one or two, up to four at the most, of his loved ones reincarnated at the same time. He took it as best he could. At least it meant he could focus on keeping them as safe as possible in that current lifetime, since hardly any of them incarnated in the same family.
Because, you know, that would be helpful for keeping an eye on them, but no, couldn't go easy on the demon.
But he was trying again – he'd gotten the lecture from Ma...Mizar, about neglecting his loved ones, one time too many, and he was going to try his best now not to deserve that lecture, that disappointment in his sister's eyes, again.
Because no matter what lifetime, he did love them, and he wanted to see them, watch over them, love them.
It hurt, to not see them for so long, and for them to no longer be the people he first loved, but he savored each lifetime they had together.
At the moment, though, he was beginning to think the universe really was against him.
Because it seemed like everyone had reincarnated, all within a few years of each other! Mabel, Henry, Willow, Hank, Acacia, Stan, Ford, Wendy, Soos, Melody, Cassie, Pacifica, Lionel, Torako, all of them within a five year span!
And now, now Robbie, Tambry, Soos' Seven, Gideon, Killian, Michael, Thomas, Elisha and a dozen more who he'd been friends with, they'd all been born as well! Every single one within a decade, and it shouldn't have been possible, but it had happened anyway.
Part of him wanted to focus on the newly reborn Mizar, but he'd seen what happened when he did that to the exclusion of everyone else. (Bentley's face hovered in his mind with the thought, the reminders of just what happened when he depended only on Mizar to help him stay human, the burden he put on them, how very unfair it was to expect one person to shoulder that responsibility by themselves, and he refused to do that again, not if he could help it.)
But there were just so many of them! Dipper found himself blipping across the globe almost constantly, with barely time to answer the occasional summons in between. (His answering machine was getting the most work it had seen in centuries, although the frequency of its appearance didn't seem to be deterring anyone from trying over and over again to summon him. Fine. Let them listen to Mabel's covers of twenty first century music on endless repeat, see if he cared. He. Was. Busy!
...Maybe he should update it a little, though. Add some more music. But there was no way he was taking Mabel off it, no matter how old the music was. They could just deal with the ancient music.)
Dipper would have answered more of the summonses, just to keep people from being suspicious about what he might be up to (especially with that long, long period of being so demonic still so close, only two hundred years past, and he didn't want people thinking he was safe, he didn't, didn't want to be summoned by the horrible people who liked to call on him when they thought of him as safe but outrageously powerful, but he didn't want to be the evil thing, the stuff of nightmares, he liked being summoned by friends for sleepovers and movie nights and that wasn't going to happen if people didn't know he'd regained himself, why was it so hard to find a balance to these things) except for a few...little problems.
Like how apparently, his interest in these souls had left accidental marks on them from his constant hovering, marks that were brighter now that he was actively watching over them. Which meant that now, more and more supernatural creatures were curious about these souls, that Alcor didn't own, had no real reason that they could see to watch, yet was so protective over.
A rusalka going after Ford's newest incarnation, Florentino, dryads watching over Henry/Robin, fae with their eyes on Pacifica/Piper, vampires and demons and angels oh my, all of them interested in the dozens of souls who seemed intent on either running towards danger or ignoring it completely even as it surrounded them, souls that the Dreambender had such vested interest in.
Someone had to have noticed by now that Dipper was so distracted. Hell, even during most of the few summons he had answered during these last few years, he knew he'd only been able to give them half his attention. But, well...the last one had come right as Hank (now Harrison) had gotten the attention of a swarm of pixies, and half his attention was on the cult while the rest was getting ready to go save his nibling not nibling but yes nibling.
Thankfully Harrison was able to talk his way out of it, but it was still a tense few minutes, and Dipper knew the summoners had to have noticed something was up. Surely not even a cult could be that dense, when he was that obviously distracted?
Or maybe they could, he did have a bit of a reputation for odd summons behavior...he could only hope.
He was still so unsure where, when, how or even if he should introduce himself to this new Mizar, if he dare to try and say hello to his Sarva, or any of the others, but now, with everything that was happening...at least one of them should know what's going on, right?
Lucy Ann was being difficult to find at the moment, or he'd ask her for help – still would, if he could just find her. There were times when one of them would just disappear for span of time, and they'd both learned to let the other be for a few years before dragging them out of whatever hole they'd dug themselves into.
But no longer than a few years, another lesson learned the hard way.
It was almost a relief when he felt the tug that meant that Cassie (Catherine now, Dipper, remember that, remember how angry Mira was when you got her confused with previous Mizars, how unfair that was for the current incarnation) was summoning him for her traditional request of homework help and tutoring and eventual friendship.
Of course, he had to preface the whole thing with his equally traditional lecture about summoning demons, but the lecture got modified a bit this go around.
"...but even with all that said, it's good to see you again," Dipper finished, abruptly changing tone and mood, picking up the carton of ice cream that somehow Cassie's soul always seemed to know to have on hand. No matter what other changes humans went through, their love of ice cream remained constant, a little thing Dipper was grateful for.
Catherine tilted her head and looked at him oddly. "I...never summoned you before," she said, conviction wavering in the face of his contented grin.
"Not in this lifetime," he agreed, gesturing with the spoon he'd conjured up for the ice cream between the two of them, "but this? The tutoring thing? You've summoned me for homework help in more of your lifetimes than you'd believe. And after we get this taken care of, there's a few things I need to talk to you about. So what's giving you a problem this time?"
Catherine was properly skeptical about the whole 'you-summoned-me-for-help-in-previous-incarnations' information Dipper dropped on her, alongside the 'I...may need your help' he dropped on her before they started going over the homework that was giving her issues, though he didn't really explain just why he, a demon of unimaginable power, would need her help. Not just yet, while there was still homework and a deal to be completed, and trust not yet established.
But dammit, Dipper needed someone to talk to. He...he needed a friend, especially now as everything went crazy around him, and he still hadn't gotten a hold of Lucy Ann.
He didn't tell Catherine everything, obviously. Some things still needed to be earned, like trust, and previous incarnations notwithstanding, he didn't know yet just how much he could tell this Cassie, and knew she had no reason to trust him yet.
But Dipper hoped, oh so badly, that she was similar to her previous incarnations, enough that they could be friends, trusted, close friends, again, but he just didn't know yet. It was part of remembering that they weren't the same every incarnation, needing to remember what he had and hadn't yet told them in this go around, what he could tell them this time.
He did leave her a simplified version of his circle, the Cult of Dippingsauce version her soul had created so long ago, the promise that he'd answer it without blood needed, and a million questions left unanswered – as well as the knowledge that sooner or later, she was going to give in to curiosity and summon him for answers. And that he was going to give in and give them to her for cheap.
He wanted to go and introduce himself to Mizar, too, now that Cassie's soul had summoned him, but the time was just never right. Not that that particular problem had stopped him before, but he remembered all the problems he'd caused Bentley, Mira, the dozens of Mizars before that with an ill-timed or impulsive introduction, and, well...things were so complicated already.
Not that that stopped him from checking in on her a few (dozen) times a week.
He tried not to watch over her more than the others, but, well, he'd never been perfect, and that soul was his still his sister/brother/sibling.
He really shouldn't have been surprised that she noticed him, and confronted him about a month after he'd started the extra surveillance.
But then again, most Mizars were either fearless or more than a touch reckless, and Mina wasn't an exception.
Dipper had been careful not to actually come into Mina's room, to hover in the Mindscape where she shouldn't be able to see him, trying to stay unobtrusive and unobserved.
But when he blipped in, Mina paused in doing her homework. Slowly she lowered her stylus, before rapidly scrolling through screens on her tablet.
She whipped around in her chair, holding up the glowing screen in Dipper's direction. The brightness of the screen emphasized the dark sigils and binding circle on it, and Dipper was impressed despite himself. Most creatures would be ready to flee at that particular combination, even before they were activated.
"I know you're there!" Mina said, hands steady even if her voice shook. "Show yourself!"
Dipper winced. One word could be used to sum up his materialization and appearance as he made his way into the material realm, and that word was 'sheepish'.
Mina gaped at the demon hovering in her bedroom, the most powerful creature in existence in her bedroom and and and a demon of that much power had no right to look that pathetically hopeful or so much like a guilty kitten that had been caught with its paw in the goldfish bowl.
"Um..." he said, and Mina was briefly confused by the lack of reverb to his voice – all demons were supposed to have that, weren't they? "Um...Hi, Mizar," he said, ducking his head and looking at her through his bangs. "...Surprise?" he added after a few seconds of heavy silence, a sprinkle of glitter falling from a wave of jazz hands.
The tablet was only saved from an ignoble fate of crashing to the floor by a flash of blue fire catching it an inch off the ground.
The introduction to the new Mizar went better than Bentley's first official meeting, at least, though that wasn't saying much. At least this time there wasn't the notions of Twin Souls to deal with, just a human (rightfully) upset to find out that they were the infamous Mizar, that they had a demonic brother, and that Dipper owned their soul, which was never the best opener to a conversation.
There were, however, only a few hysterics and denials before Mina managed to start to calm down. Once she had, though, she demanded a full explanation of just what was going on and why this crazy demon thought she was Mizar and just what that meant and everything that was going on thank you.
This time, Dipper decided to try laying everything out on the table, up to and including why he hadn't contacted Mina until now.
Mina was both fairly understanding of his reasoning, seeing as how the demonic brother thing was still a bit of a shock and it would have made life a bit difficult, and irritated that it took him this long to contact her.
Seeing that Mina was still reeling from all this (it wasn't every day that an incredibly powerful demon showed up and claimed you were his almost equally famous sibling/lover/mother/child/whatever, even if he did emphasize the sibling part, and that he was only one that might even be remotely telling the truth about such a thing, and the stories about him were so varied and wild it was hard to tell truth from fiction about just what he might want no matter what he might claim) Dipper decided it was time to go and give her a little space.
But before he did, he made sure he left his family circle for Mina to call him with after she'd had some time to think, along with explaining again why he'd waited so long to contact her and promising he'd answer to the circle he'd given her whenever she called, whenever she was ready to talk about this, but please don't wait too long okay?
After a few seconds of mental debate, he left her Catherine's number as well, letting her know that Catherine was a friend to both of them – and not to tell anyone about that, to try and keep them both safe.
Not everyone took well to people being friends with demons, after all. Hell, in 99.9% of the cases, that was a good thing.
Not Dipper's fault he was the outlier.
About three days after meeting the latest Mizar, Dipper finally felt Lucy Ann's tug. Well, less a 'tug' and more an 'impatient yank', but still.
He answered that call almost embarrassingly quickly, if the smirk on her face was anything to go by.
He didn't bother asking what Lucy Ann had been doing, not right away at least. She called it 'nagging' and would refuse to answer just to be irritating.
Lucy Ann stepped back from the (sloppily drawn, but she used the family circle and damn it if Dipper didn't still answer to that no matter how badly drawn it was) chalk circle and sat down on a cushion shoved against the wall.
There was a second cushion set beside hers and Dipper sank onto it without a second thought, slipping into his original form as he did rather than the twenty something he tended to prefer.
"Heard you've been busy lately," Lucy Ann said, only teasing a little, but there was enough seriousness in her tone to make Dipper turn to look at her properly.
She was digging in a backpack, finally pulling out a pair of Pitt Colas. She waved one at Dipper gently and he took the can, cracking it open and biting down hard on a finger, letting the blood his fangs drew drip into the can. Ritual complete, they traded cans and settled more comfortably against the wall.
"I didn't think you got my message," Dipper said, taking a sip from his can. "I know you get busy sometimes."
"So do you," Lucy Ann replied, taking a slug. "Damn. Forgot how much of a kick demon blood has...anyway. Figured you'd find me when you found Hank's latest."
"...Harrison seemed to have everything under control, and then Catherine started summoning me again and I kinda hoped..."
"Yeah, yeah, I already was keeping an eye on him," Lucy Ann waved vaguely to make her point. "He'd laying low. Actually reminds me a bit of Hank, but in a good way. Not the point right now. You want to hear the latest rumors or not?"
"...how bad is it?" Dipper asked, not sure if he wanted to know but pretty sure he needed to.
"You're not as sneaky as you think you are. Someone figured out that the symbols on your circle represent people, and they've been putting the pieces together. Nobodies' sure who all your symbols are yet, but they've figured out they're all alive," she said. "Maybe you should've cut back on the mother-henning a bit, you dork," she added with a smirk. "Or at least look online once in awhile."
Dipper muttered crankily about being all-knowing and not a mother hen and took another drink as Lucy Ann cackled. She sobered quickly and grunted as she gave Dipper's arm a punch. "Seriously, though, people who pay attention to these things are freaking out, and not always just in a nerd way. They can't tell just why there's all this stuff going on, just that you're always there when it happens, and that certain people always seem to be there too, so they're putting things together. They can't tell if you're trying to destroy 'em or protect 'em, and there's a version of your circle going around with just about everyone's symbol on it, with a note on the side. Looks like Mabel's handwriting."
"...everyone's?" Dipper asked, slightly disbelieving, and Lucy Ann shrugged.
Digging through her backpack, she produced a folded printout and handed it over. "Maybe not every person you ever gave a symbol to," she admitted as Dipper sat down the can and started unfolding the paper. "But most of them, the ones on your main circle, I'd say. The ones you've known in more than one go-round, at least. Found this online, didn't add a thing."
Dipper, meanwhile, was staring at the printout of his circle, the symbols clear and crisp and each bringing to his mind a soul, names and faces and lifetimes. Beside each symbol was a line, and a good half of them had a name written on that line.
The names, he noted with sinking heart and a stomach caught in his throat (both of which were constructs of his mind but felt so real), were mostly the ones he'd used to refer to the soul, rather than the current owner (Mizar, he saw, and Sarva, the triplets' star names and Wendy's and more. The soul names were usually only ones Dipper or Lucy Ann used, to keep track of a soul, so it couldn't control them the way a True Name could, but it was still disturbing to see them on there) but worse than that were the ones where the current incarnation's name was labeled next to their soul name, some with question marks, some with more than one name, but far too many had the correct name for that soul's current life written on that paper.
Off to the side of the page sat the note Lucy Ann had pointed out, in Mabel's perky handwriting, and he could see it as if the original Journal sat there instead of a print out, sparkly purple gel pen and all. He could even remember the argument he and Mabel had had over it, once, so long ago, over her flippant warning and if the situation wasn't so worrying at this moment he could have cried at the realization that he had nearly forgotten the sound of her voice, the look of her writing, of her handiwork.
Bringing these people together can quell Alcor's wrath, it said, as opposed to Mabel's initial note of Find these people if Alcor's being a grumpy pants, they'll help calm him down.
"I don't think anyone's in danger yet," Lucy Ann said bluntly. "Everyone's still too afraid of you to try anything while you're keeping such a close eye on them. Plus they haven't figured out just everyone yet, or why you're watching them, but we're going to have a problem when they do."
Dipper buried his head in his arms with a despairing groan. Lucy Ann patted his back sympathetically, though Dipper was pretty sure she was enjoying his frustration, at least a little. "What was I supposed to do?" he asked. "It's like everyone came back at once, and then things started going after them, but the more I watched out for them the more things came, and UGH."
"Have you been in touch with the Dinner Crew?" he asked, after a huge breath that he didn't need but that helped anyway.
Lucy Ann gave a little shrug and a nod. "The latest head's not as good as Hank was, but he's trying, at least. And he listens. Do you need them to go on alert?"
"Not yet," Dipper said. "I mean, that's jumping things just a little."
"...you totally want us watching them," Lucy Ann said with a grin.
"...like hawks," Dipper agreed after a second, leaning back against the wall. "But I can't. It's not...you have other things to do, and if they start getting watched by the Dinner Crew, then whoever's trying to figure out who the symbols are is going to figure them out sooner. Ugh, what a mess."
"You said it," Lucy Ann said sympathetically. Well, mostly sympathetically. Just enough to keep Dipper from flipping her off. She may have been nearly older than dirt and not close to the current incarnations, but she got how close Dipper got to them.
Dipper cracked open an eye to look at her. "You should probably be keeping an eye out," he said. "You're on the circle too, you know."
Lucy Ann's brow creased and she snatched the paper out of Dipper's hands to start searching the circle, so fiercely it was a miracle the paper didn't catch fire, eyes darting between the different symbols until Dipper took pity and tapped one with a claw, one of the symbols that had a few names beside it marked with question marks but no definite answer for who it belonged to, and just a bigger question mark for what the soul's name might be. "There. That's you," he said shortly.
Lucy Ann stared at the symbol for a few seconds before she gave his shoulder a hard punch, but her eyes were soft. "Sentimental dork," she muttered. "...love you too."
Dipper was beginning to seriously question his decision not to involve the Dinner Crew about two weeks later.
The triplets had gone missing. Admittedly, they weren't triplets anymore, weren't even really his now, but some part of him still thought of them as his stars, his triplets, his, despite all the time that had passed.
And all three of them were missing.
Dipper was blipping all over the planet, losing his mind as he tried to watch over all his other symbols while still trying to find his stars while they were blocked from his sight.
He gave in after a day, as even he couldn't keep up that pace, and sought out Lucy Ann to bring in the Dinner Crew.
She took it a step further and found the remnants of the Cult of Dippingsauce and Circle of the Dreamer's Star, recruiting them to help. The Circle was a bit confused about it, but somehow she talked them into it, probably helped by the fact that there were three people missing, with a list of others who might be in danger, and their god was frantic with worry. Not that she gave them the whole names, the soul names, but she gave them enough.
Dipper really wished now that he'd tried to contact all the stars on his circle before now, during this lifetime, but he knew for a fact that some of them would not have reacted well to a demon just showing up and trying to talk to them, to say the least.
Exorcisms were not fun, and Dipper hadn't been in the mood to deal with someone trying one again. Rejection cut even deeper, and well...little wonder he'd put it off with some of them. It...probably wouldn't have ended well.
Then Ford's reincarnation went missing. And then Stan's. One by one, rapidly, sometimes two or three a week, until thirteen of the sixteen major symbols were missing.
Dipper, nearly out of his mind with panic at this point, was called by Lucy Ann to the Dinner Crew's headquarters. He appeared without theatrics to find her pacing the edge of his circle, cursing under her breath.
"I can't find them either," Dipper said before she could speak. "I was watching over them, but you, Mina, and Catherine are the only ones I'd really contacted. And you're the only ones left."
"And your hovering might be why whoever's doing this hasn't touched us yet," Lucy Ann said, pausing her pacing to tap a foot and cross her arms, looking up at the board with all the symbols and names on it on the wall. The ones that were currently missing were marked in red, and the board was almost covered with it. There were suspects and theories on the board as well, but they were depressingly few and wild compared to the stark list of the missing. " That is, if you've been as unsubtle as usual about this. Hard to be sure, though. Doubt Mina or Catherine have exactly been bragging about it, and I made sure we didn't tell anyone we didn't trust why we were watching these people, so I don't think we have a traitor."
"None of them are dead, at least," Dipper said, floating closer to the board and ignoring the crack about his subtlety. "Though that's not always all that reassuring, but I've been watching so closely this time around, I'd know. I always know."
Lucy Ann winced, well acquainted with how little reassurance the words 'not dead' could be. "We'll have to put the whole Crew on high alert," she said. "I know we were trying not to let anyone know who they are by watching them too closely, but we might not have a choice anymore. Either they do know and they haven't taken Mina or Catherine yet because they're scared of you, or the time hasn't been right, or they don't and they're still searching, but they need protection."
"...don't forget you'll need some too, in that case," Dipper said softly.
Lucy Ann scoffed and began to protest before Dipper interrupted. "I mean it, Lucy Ann! Look, we both know you're stupid old and way better at defending yourself than just about anybody else, but they're still going to come after you primed for vampire, and even you aren't immune to everything yet."
Lucy Ann was still scowling. In a sudden burst of desperation, Dipper shrank down to her level, clasped his hands in front of him, and gave her the biggest, most piteous puppy eyes he was capable of.
And there is nothing in the world quite as pitiful as a shapeshifter giving the puppy eyes.
Lucy Ann groaned, covering her own eyes while her other hand propped itself on her hip, refusing to look at Dipper.
"No. Dipper, I'm the oldest known vampire in the world, I don't need..." Lucy Ann made the mistake of uncovering her eyes to glare at Dipper.
If anything, his eyes had gone even wider, and when she looked at him, he added a wibbling lip to the mix. "Please, Lucy Ann."
"That is not fair," she accused, pointing at Dipper with a finger that shook both with anger and suppressed laughter. "You don't do puppy eyes! And I have an idea, but it won't work with bodyguards!"
Dipper gave another wibble before dropping the act, shooting back up in height to his preferred form. "What idea?" he asked.
Lucy Ann grinned. It was the type of grin that usually has a fin on top and is traveling towards you at high speeds.
"This is a terrible plan," Dipper said two days later, watching from above as Lucy Ann sat on a bench in the park. "Seriously, this plan sucks."
"Hush, you," Lucy Ann shot back, not looking up at Dipper so as not to blow his cover. "It's not like you had a better idea."
"I'm sure I could have come up with one that didn't involve using you as bait," he said crankily, crossing arms and legs sulkily. "This is a terrible, awful plan."
What happened next, as Lucy Ann finally gave in and glanced up at Dipper to give him a glare, happened almost too fast even for the two immortals to follow.
Dipper spasmed as two cries for help echoed through his head, Mina and Catherine screaming for him almost as one.
Below him, Lucy Ann screamed once, a short, furious cry of surprise before she started cursing.
Dipper fought to shake off the shock, crying out as a spray of holy water hit him, not a stream directed at him or at Lucy Ann, but aimed to the side to catch the vampire with the spray, catching the demon as well, aimed well enough they'd never know if the attackers knew Dipper was there or not.
By the time Dipper had recovered, smoke was drifting up from below, the bodyguards that had been watching Lucy Ann coughing and choking on it, blinded and taken down.
And Lucy Ann was missing.
In a blind panic, Dipper shot to Mina's home and found in empty and silent. He tore through the apartment, ripping open closets and through every room, as though she might be hiding from him, in a macabre game of hide-and-seek.
He ripped from Mina's home to Catherine's, tearing into corporeality with such force, such speed, that the air ripped, a physical, audible sound, with the force of his passing, traveling fast and careless enough to actually hit the floor and skid along it, leaving claw marks in the floor as he dug in to stop.
He screamed her name, even as he knew it was futile. The house was cold and still, and no living person was there.
Panicked and sick, Dipper knelt on the floor, hands pressed to his mouth tight enough his claws bit into his cheeks, golden tears streaming and wings wrapping tight around his body as he wailed quietly, like the child part of him would always be, and shook with fear and despair.