#all art is official to my knowledge
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rocketbirdie · 2 months ago
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Cloud Strife
1 in 3 chance for each played 7 to create a Planet card when scored.
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praysia · 6 months ago
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Nene Yashiro Renders.
― Requested by: @neapolitvn. ― Please do not repost my renders without credit.
― Google Drive Link.
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liquidchocolatecake · 7 months ago
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currently captive audience to a knock down drag out fight in my brain between desire to respect the wishes of the creator and not look for anyone redistributing the comic and god i fucking miss wonderlab i miss wonderlab so much you have no idea i want wonderlab back so bad
#project moon#wonderlab#seriously wonderlab was so fucking good that like#the entire time pre-limbus release every time we got news i would get so excited for a potential followup on wonderlab's ending#and the idea of seeing characters like taii#with amazing designs from a comic that already had some absolutely stunning imagery#drawn in a style like the absolutely fucking beautiful painterly style of ruina's character art and cgs#getting to see more of taii and the other survivors of the branch and seeing where their lives would go after that ending#seeing how the loss of so many important people would affect them and how they'd struggle in the aftermath of l corp's collapse#we already had ONE distortion in the ending of wonderlab with catt and that happened BASICALLY MOMENTS AFTER LOBCORP'S ENDING#can you IMAGINE how cool it'd be to see all of these characters#who already have experience with combat and ego and weird anomalous monsters via their work in the branch#react to and potentially figure out and adapt to the distortion phenomenon?#LITERALLY THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF LIMBUS IS GOING INTO FORMER L CORP BRANCHES#THAT'S THE SELLING POINT OF THE GAME! THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE! OF COURSE I WOULD GET EXCITED ABOUT MORE WONDERLAB STUFF!#BUT NOW WE'LL NEVER GET THAT#WE'LL NEVER SEE TAII AGAIN IN OFFICIAL MEDIA#WE'RE JUST LEFT WITH THE MEMORY OF THAT FINAL PANEL AND TAII GAZING OVER THIS STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL SURREAL LANDSCAPE#WITH PROMISES OF A JOURNEY WE'RE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO SEE#FUCK I MISS WONDERLAB#wonderlab was so fucking good that it accidentally became the cornerstone of my entire perspective on project moon's works as a whole#and now that it's gone i can't go back to lobcorp or ruina without feeling its absence like a gaping void in my chest#the only thing left in its place being the knowledge of the shitshow that was the drama surrounding project moon for a while#and the thought that maybe in a different world we would've gotten to see more#FUCK man#no joke i literally made myself cry typing this whole rant out#suddenly learning that wonderlab had been taken down was a fucking wound i have never recovered from#and i've never been able to look at ruina or limbus with the same sense of awe and wonder and curiosity ever since#just the bitter knowledge that yet another formerly beloved story and world has fallen into corporate nightmares and gacha cash grabs#i haven't been able to keep up with project moon much at all since. i don't know if anything else has happened.
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dukeofqueers · 2 years ago
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i think solomon and hadern explored each other’s bodies
mortal shell sketches from last year that i made while rocking a high fever for several days. i love these sad guys waaaaay too much
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skepticalcatfrog · 7 months ago
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Guys I feel like I am trying to put together a puzzle out of pieces from one million different puzzles where no one full puzzle is present. I was looking at This Foul Murder today and I came across the part where Marshall describes Benedikt's eyes as being "brown-grey" and "ambiguous dark". I was already familiar with this because I am a frequent peruser of Benedikt's fandom wiki page. But I always just assumed it was mistaken on the wiki page, because I was 10000% sure I had read in the books somewhere else that his eyes are light colored/blue.
I absolutely SCOURED TVD for any mention of Benedikt to try to find an answer and I came up with nothing. Did I imagine this?? Have I created an alternate timeline where Benedikt underwent a change of eye color akin to Thalia Grace of the Riordanverse??
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heartyearning · 4 months ago
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Uni student (semi-officially now)
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531 · 2 years ago
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You're my angel!
NARUMI MONA: set of 3 layouts
@ayaksrr. do not tag as f/o or kin/me unless tagged.
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cinematicnomad · 2 years ago
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spain in june
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fourleafisland · 11 months ago
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support me on kofi! | carrd | art streams
i like to imagine akari got to wear the uniform he wanted after the end of the manga. (who is this? pokemon history under the cut!)
for those of you who don't know, this is akari from the manga 'how i became a pokemon card (1999)'! (bulbapedia link)
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he is a trans boy, and to my knowledge is the only canon trans boy in all of the pokemon franchise among the small handful of canon trans characters.
this manga never got an official localization, so how some chose to translate the matter of akari using different pronouns differs from translation to translation. the sentiment stays the same though - akari is a boy, though he was born a girl.
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this and the tension it causes with his mother is the main focus of this chapter of the manga. i would even say the subject of dysphoria is communicated pretty decently for how old the manga is, though usually through the metaphor of pokemon!
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though the ending for the chapter is kind of ambiguous, so i wouldn't call it a perfect representation, its still pretty cool to see a canon trans character in a manga thats almost as old as i am. thank you if you read this far, and please give this manga a read!
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remxedmoon · 1 month ago
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(You don’t know how much longer you can do this.)
hi the wip for this was absolutely not supposed to blow up. why does that have 1k notes. horrifying. anyways!!!! it’s update time baby!!!! 64 new assets this time around!
so that’s what the caption was supposed to be. this update was already pretty damn big and took a ton of time to make!!! and i was finally done!! but then my hand slipped and now we’re at 143 new assets. super sorry for the delay! That Was Not Supposed To Happen.
i’ll go more indepth below the cut, but this update encompasses all menu/profile art for both isat and sasasaap, battle portraits for sasasaap, every single pixel icon in isat (to my knowledge anyways), the dialogue skipping animations, and a few miscellaneous additions.
also i spent too much time on these to put them below the cut so Please God Look At My Icon Resprites I Spent 16 Hours On Them. enjoy!
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okay first things first. why the hell is this batch 143 assets. so. i HEAVILY underestimated how many times the menu drawings are used in the games. even removing all of the custom art, it’s still ≈30-40 variations! that’s a lot! and once i finally finished everything, i got Posting Anxiety and somehow convinced myself that attempting Animation And Pixel Art (two things i haven’t done in YEARS) would be easier than writing a normal post. so here we are.
the custom art here is pretty much par for the course at this point. extra menu art for bonnie, extra expressions for the party in act 5, we’ve done this enough times that it’s expected. i am aware that bonnie’s custom menu art gets completely covered by the ui. i kept it in because it’s really funny (and also i didn’t feel like extending the sprite (but then the sasasaap version forced me to extend the sprite anyways so Whartever)).
once again, provided a spritesheet for sasasaap’s battle portraits! i do intend to cover both games, it’s just a slightly lower priority atm. unlike isat though, i’ve got Less (read “No”) experience with sasasaap, so there might be more issues with those assets?? apologies if there are, i’ll try to fix any issues that come up!
the Miscellaneous Additions i mentioned above are the sprites used on the teleport map and the loading screen, which is just a tiny version of the skipping animation. they were pretty small, so i figured i might as well get them out of the way!
not actually much to say about the 75 icons surprisingly! i haven’t done pixel art in about 5 years?? and that’s a Travesty actually these were super fun to make. i did make mockups for the overworld sprites earlier, but they aren’t Officially part of the redraws (yet) so they’re getting posted seperately
and also!! some exciting news!! this project might actually become a Proper Published Mod pretty soon!! i’ve been in contact with someone who’s willing to help me get everything set up, and i’ll be getting a Usable Computer around the end of the year!!!! it’ll still be at least a month before it’s up (i’d like to get the enemy art finished beforehand wauaua) but!!! still exciting!
okay, i think that’s everything relevant to the update!! i Definitely can’t fit all of the relevant assets here lol. but i’ll try my best ! please enjoy !!
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mircsy · 1 month ago
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I have a challenge
 A test of skills
 EPIC!Athena Draw This In Your Style, as promisedđŸ™‚â€â†•ïž
Use #AthenaDTIYSmircsy so I can see it if anyone decides to draw this beast of a drawing LMAO
NO deadline (and doesn’t need to be the exact same pose)
And something else

EPIC: The Musical is the example of what people are capable of if they work together with respect, understanding, love and support. With these aspects people are able to build the world Athena wonders about if it would be possible to ever exist.
The fact that one person’s dream, Jorge’s, could grow and keep blooming is majestic and mind-blowing, and the project had great impact on many many many people already, including me too.
Throughout the three years I’ve been following the amazing process and releases, EPIC gave me plenty of memories, knowledge, better understanding of others and myself, and a direction where to take my future thanks to this rare opportunity to work on official animatics for songs, which I am so deeply grateful that there are no words for it in any languages. This musical truly pulled me out of a deep, dark pit

But that’s not all. Thanks to EPIC I got to know many incredible people, starting from some of the cast members, to other composers, to other artists, to people who like the kind of art I do, to true friends. Every second with these people is a bliss and pleasure.(I wish I could tag you all but you are so freaking manyđŸ˜­đŸ«¶)
Again, I’m just grateful we can experience this together! See you in future projects, since with the Ithaca Saga released, the journey truly begins now

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cool-island-songs · 4 months ago
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Analysis of ALNST Character Relationship Metrics
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My art book won't be here for a minute, but I ran some screenshots I saw on twt through an image translator and have a lot of thoughts:
TILL: Despite claiming to hate everyone in the world, Till ranks Ivan at 70% intimacy even as he identifies perturbing behaviors of Ivan's going back years and refers to him as "a bother". He also ranks Sua at 10% in spite of having little to say about her and finding it uncomfortable to be around her.
Though he postures at being misanthropic and has all the manners you'd expect of a boy who was half off at the human child pound, he's actually quite gentle and sensitive. This is reflected in one of the graduation messages he's left by a classmate as well:
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The person he feels closest to is an unattainable crush, and someone who doesn't feel that close with him in return, likely because he's too shy to really approach her or carry on a conversation.
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MIZI: That's Mizi, of course, who's rather childlike and naive initially. She likes everyone, but since Till chokes when he tries to speak to her and often keeps his distance, she wonders if he's avoiding her because he dislikes her.
Mizi gravitates towards people who she sees as "perfect", which is how she describes Ivan and Sua in her graduation message to Ivan:
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She doesn't see the darker side of Ivan's personality (which has been described on several occasions, even by himself, as "twisted") because he's attractive, successful, and helpful to her.
Though she likes everyone, Sua is her "God", and the only thing that can keep them apart is the tragedy of their situation, which forces Mizi to grow up in a brutally painful way.
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SUA: Sua is far less idealistic and naive than Mizi, and has clearly thought about sacrificing herself to save Mizi, since Ivan picks on her for thinking of doing so in an official comic. Accordingly, her feelings about Mizi are far more tinged by the knowledge that they will one day be torn apart by external circumstances. She laments that reciprocating her feelings will one day cause Mizi great pain.
She's always been more somber, and despite her surface similarities to Ivan (which he notes in a follow-up comic wherein he realizes he was wrong about Sua's feelings for Mizi being unrequited), she's quite different on the inside. Sua's more sensitive and thus her colder exterior serves to protect her, whereas Ivan's outward persona creates an illusion of normalcy that doesn't reflect his reality.
Sua views Ivan and Till as a threat and a nuisance, respectively. Like Till, she senses something strange about Ivan, and when it comes to Till, it's just one person too many around for her. This is fascinating to me, because I thought she might pity Till! Her feelings about Ivan were already pretty clear from this panel of the 'piggyback' comic, and she seems deeply hurt in the first comic linked by his prodding.
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IVAN: For his part, Ivan is fascinated by Till even though he's content to sit back and observe, pestering him to get a reaction or his attention for a brief time. He doesn't expect anything in return but wants more than anything to be on Till's mind (hence behaviors like stealing Till's belongings and returning them to him, pretending he had found them).
He prefers Sua to Mizi despite his awareness that Sua doesn't particularly like him, seeing her as a sister and even telling her she's "twisted" like he is. He likes Mizi well enough, especially her sincerity, but seems to find her optimism a bit much at times.
The fact that Mizi and the others would likely consider Ivan and Mizi quite close while Ivan does not reflects how much he postures even in his closest relationships. He struggles to connect with those he's most compelled by and it's not clear if he really wants to.
Some Ivantill thoughts before I go:
There seems to be a common sentiment that it's tragic Till was unable to see how much Ivan loved him, and I think we'll likely get more of Till's perspective on Ivan and their relationship in round 7. But it may not be the case that Ivan even wanted his true feelings to be seen, or would have known what to do if Till had reciprocated them.
There's something almost voyeuristic and self-negating in his feelings for Till (see: "I can’t reach you, so I imagine alone/You who shines, I stand next to you" from 'Black Sorrow'). He has far more self-awareness and willingness to accept things as they are than Till, who doesn't see that Mizi only has eyes for Sua and who would likely struggle to accept that reality.
Ivan, on the other hand, is well aware that his feelings for Till are "shallow", a bright fantasy to get him through his dark reality, and he seems to sincerely believe that his death won't scar Till because he's never really broken through to him. He's a schemer, and comments he makes in his graduation message to Till and the interview he gives in advance of round 6 suggest that he may have been planning to sacrifice himself for some time.
Part of me wonders if he hoped it would leave a mark on Till. Choking, kissing, and violently sacrificing oneself are all aggressive, forward acts, especially from someone who used to toy with people to get his kicks but was otherwise quite passive and unfeeling.
There are a lot of parallels in the one-sided loves, like Till acting out of his usual character for Mizi, and Ivan doing the same because of Till, putting all hopes of being saved in something just out of reach, staying in chains for that one special person. But Ivan's psychology is quite different from Till's, and in fact closest to Luka's re: low or no empathy. Both Ivan and Till are significantly traumatized by their upbringings but Ivan's difficult early life in the slums and his experience being dangled off that rooftop seem to have damaged his ability to connect to others or feel much of anything.
Till is the first person for whom he feels anything while for Till, Mizi is an early crush he puts on a pedestal in a much more commonplace way. I think the shared trauma of competing on that stage makes it much more difficult for either of them to imagine moving on, but Ivan is not wrong in identifying that he won't find that feeling again.
The thing that intrigues me most about this series is the way the contestants' differences play out, particularly with regard to how they view love and how they respond to their individual and shared challenges. I'd love to get into it further another time but this is quite long already so thanks for sticking with it if any have (haha)
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lqfiles · 1 year ago
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SCORE THAT GOAL! — smau
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after your college had announced that all the students were required to join a club and attend it twice a week, you were planning on either a) dropping out, or b) join the art club and pretend to be sick most of the times. that was before you discovered that park jisung is a long time member of the football team. change in plans: you LOVE football.
or in which you mindlessly join the football club in hopes of catching your crush’s attention (and to maybe secretly check him out too) who cares if you can’t even kick a ball up in the air?
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football-player!jisung x fem!reader
genre ; rlly just humour, football / sports au, fluff, some angst, pining and eventually mutual pining, probably slow-burn, college au, strangers to lovers.
extras ; teasing and profanity | sexual and death jokes | reader is down bad | jisung kinda dislikes reader and closed off at the start | my knowledge on football isn’t the BEST but i know above basics and enough for this fic | idrc if some of these subject clubs don’t exist this is for entertainment 😾
notes ; 😭 mostly posting this for myself cos i’ve wanted to try a smau for a while now but i hope anyone else enjoys too.
PLAYLIST ; Rising , TripleS — Hype Boy , newjeans — Awkward , SZA — Gasoline , ROSY (FT. LILMONEY) — Attracted To You , Pinkpantheress — Cognac Queen , Megan Thee Stallion — Goodie Bag , Still Woozy — Eyedress , Something About You .
STATUS ; completed! (24.02.24)
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profiles (1) | profiles (2)
1 ) donghyuck’s fault
2 ) 20% more insane
3 ) it’s the voices again
4 ) yes captain!
5 ) invest in a priv account
6 ) peach lipton ice tea
7 ) no suicide EVER
8 ) always believe women
9 ) grape & lemon drink
10 ) favourite teammate
11 ) wingman
12 ) jeno’s food provider
13 ) no lunch
14 ) awkward tension
15 ) a simple conversation
16 ) an even more normal conversation
17 ) under my umbrella
18 ) a canon event (ft. Renjun's Black Friday offer)
19 ) feeling submissive and fragile
20 ) woman hobbies & failed courseworks
21 ) man up and break it
22 ) make-up brush vs subway sandwich
23 ) OFFICIAL FRIENDSHIP!!!
24 ) a nice gesture
25 ) NOT my boyfriend
26 ) business exchange
27 ) what about mark?
28 ) winter wonders with you
29 ) JISUNG vs MARK
30 ) my princess (very lame)
31 ) riddle me this
32 ) do you like her? (probably)
33 ) wtf does QUORA know?
34 ) JISUNGxY/N: plan A
35 ) evil out the way, GOOD RIDDANCE
36 ) basketball incidents.
37 ) JISUNGxY/N: plan B (the jisung quiz)
38 ) E-DATING đŸ”›đŸ”đŸ”„
39 ) wise words from renjun
40 ) that one sign
41 ) guess it’s a date
42 ) (unofficial) couple goals
43 ) the y/nle argument
44 ) professional over-thinker
45 ) executing major girlboss energy
46 ) the confession prep
47 ) knock some sense into them
48 ) war is over
49 ) knock some sense into JISUNG
50 ) an overdue confession
51 ) be your boyfriend?
52 ) scored that goal!
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BONUS:
jisung the blonde
JISUNG vs MARK pt.2
jaemin’s hit tweets
the jeno quiz
one huge polyamory relationship
rating my boyfriend’s hair colours
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thank you for reading!
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ckret2 · 10 days ago
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Chapter 82 of you can really tell the writer got a new art program this week and went apeshit with it instead of doing anything productive: the Mystery Shack is in terrible peril from the government and only one thing can save them:
Teaching Bill Cipher how to flirt with humans!!
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The Stans explained the plan to Dipper and Mabel as briefly as possible—that Bill had to save them all by flirting with the head fed—and that was about as far as they got before Mabel started squealing. They wished her good luck with Bill, wished him good luck with Mabel, and beat a hasty retreat, with Dipper tagging along after Ford on the pretense of helping figure out how to get the flash drive out of Gompers.
"This is perfect!" Mabel slammed the door closed—and Bill had the sneaking suspicion she'd trapped him on purpose—then grabbed both his hands to drag him further into the room. "I can see it now! He'll fall in love with you, and then he'll realize that living in a small logging town is so much more emotionally fulfilling than his high-pressure fast-paced big city government job, and he'll see what a special, magical place Gravity Falls is and he won't wanna do anything that could change it, and Washington will call him like, 'Your report is late! Have you forgotten your mission?' And he'll go 'I have a new mission now: my WIFE!' And—"
"Hold on!" Bill pulled his hands back. "I think you skipped the part where you married me off to a government agent."
"No I didn't! Because he says that and everyone gasps and then he gets down on his knee in front of you and pulls out a ring and—"
"In your dreams, star girl." He dropped onto Mabel's bed and crossed his legs. "Think a little less cheesy Christmas romcom, and more noir spy movie with a double-crossing femme fatale."
Mabel measured that up against her limited spy movie knowledge, and asked dubiously, "You're gonna drop him in a tank of sharks?"
"Hey, if you have one...!" Bill laughed. "But, no. The plan is just for me to keep him distracted long enough for the nerd squad to get the flash drive, wipe any sensitive data, and leave it somewhere that'll make the agents think the goat dumped it naturally."
Mabel considered that. She inhaled deeply. "Okay," she said. "But. What if it's one of those movies where the evil girl spy has a change of heart because of the good guy's charm and you do fall in love."
"Do you remember who we're talking about?" Bill asked. "Fine! If we fall in love, you can be the ring bearer, best maid, and officiant—but don't start stapling together a white dress just yet."
Mabel completely skipped past his main point. She whispered, "You'd let me make your wedding dress?"
"I'd turn down every fashion designer in Milan, Paris, New York, and London combined."
Her eyes widened. "I've gotta start drawing wedding dresses." She rummaged around the floor for an unused piece of paper and the nearest crayon and/or marker box.
"Draw me as a triangle," Bill said automatically. "So there, you're caught up on the plan!" He slowly slid off Mabel's bed toward the door. "So if you'd let me out so I can prepare..."
"Ohh no. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford brought you to me to learn how to flirt, and I'm going to teach you how to flirt."
He groaned, but plopped back down on Mabel's bed. "I don't need to be taught how to flirt! I'm a pro! While your universe was still gearing up for a Big Bang, I was fending off marriage proposals from lovelorn generation ships and sentient oceans."
"You're not seducing ships and oceans." Mabel had already flopped onto the floor and drawn a triangle with an eye, and was trying to figure out how to put a dress on it. "You're seducing a man."
"Which is even easier! You people barely last a century, you're desperate! Humans fling themselves at me left and right!"
"Then you'll have no trouble passing my love quiz."
Bill automatically frowned. There was a part of him that still tensed up at the word "quiz" even if he did know more about romance than the entire human race combined. "What, like the one you put the guys through on your dating show?"
"Yes, but with all new questions! So you can't just copy all of Soos's answers to get a perfect score!"
"Psh! Like I need to copy anyone's answers," said Bill, who had never taken a quiz in his life without copying someone else's answers and had been planning to do just that. "All right, hit me."
"Question one! Uh..." She tapped a crayon to her chin as she thought. "What's the best gift to give on a first date? Jewelry, chocolate, a wedding ring, or flowers?"
"Ooh, we're starting with bribery, huh?" When in doubt, the right answer was usually C; but "jewelry" and "wedding ring" seemed kinda redundant. Well—cheating had never failed him before, why stop now? "None of the above! I've got a better answer than all of them!"
Mabel lowered her crayon to give him a skeptical look. "Oh yeah? What?"
"Sneak into their dreams the night before, find out their heart's desire, and surprise 'em with that," Bill said. "That's not even a romantic move. It'll let you win over a human in any context! Birthday parties, baby showers, job interviews, criminal trials, hostage negotiations..."
"What if you don't know their heart's desire?"
"Then you're not me."
She set down her crayon, laced her hands under her chin, and said, "Okay, then. If you were trying to win me over, what's my dream birthday gift?"
"Replacing your bedroom with a bouncy castle with inflatable furniture."
"Ha! No it's n..." She trailed off. "Wait. Ohmigosh."
"Told ya."
"I've been dreaming too small," Mabel whispered. She shoved aside her first drawing and started drawing her fantasy bedroom.
Bill picked up one of Mabel's dolls—a floppy tiger—and started talking to it like he was lecturing it. Forget this whole "taking a quiz" thing; he was much more comfortable in the roll of the teacher than the student. "And if it's a blind date and I can't stalk 'em beforehand, nobody's ever disappointed by a solid gold brick," he told the doll.  "It's both practical and pretty, and it appeals to humans' natural greed without making them feel sleazy about accepting a wad of hundreds from their date."
"What's Agent Powers's heart's desire?"
Heck. He didn't actually know. He'd ducked in on the guy's life a handful of times, but he'd never needed to pay that close attention to him. What did boring people like? "A really nice leather wallet," Bill said.
"Okay, you're off to a strong start," Mabel said. "Question two: what's the ideal location for a first date?"
"What are my options?"
"Fooey to the options! I wanna hear your thoughts."
"Then that's easy: anywhere they can't escape from until they love you," Bill said. "Even better if you can serenade 'em."
Mabel nodded in approval. "Perfect answer, full points! Every Inkwell princess movie and vampire novel on the market agrees! Question three: best first date outfit?"
"Sexy."
"Okay—yeah," Mabel said, "But specifically, what does that look like?"
"Tallest hat you can find," Bill said.
Mabel waited. Bill didn't say anything else. Mabel said, "What about the rest of the outfit?"
"Bow tie. Outfit complete."
"That's just what you wear."
"And it's always sexy!" Bill insisted.
"Maybe in Flatworld, but this is earth! If you go out dressed in nothing but a hat and a bow tie, you'll be having your date in the back of a police car!"
"Fine," Bill huffed. "Fifty pairs of gloves—and the more of them you have hands to fill, the better! A dress made out of blank checks! Two snakes! A fur coat made out of live kittens!" Bill shook the stuffed doll emphatically with each point. "Good enough?!"
Mabel squinted thoughtfully at him. "The kitten coat has potential."
"Damn me with faint praise, why don't you."
"What about more traditional romantic outfits? Like... a red velvet suit with a leopard print shirt? Or short shorts that say 'too hot' on the butt?" Mabel asked. "Or a t-shirt with your date's face on it in a heart! That shows your date 'I'm here to focus on you!'"
"What if my date's face is ugly, did you think about that?" Bill asked, mainly to cover up the fact that he was chagrined he hadn't thought of the velvet suit himself. "Forget about fashion. Next question!"
"Okay, how would you prepare yourself for the perfect date? Aside from finding a tall hat and stalking your date's dreams."
"Hygiene's the most important thing," Bill said. "Humans are very attuned to pheromones. It's one of your base instincts."
A look of relief cross Mabel's face. "Yes! Good start. So we're talking a shower, or...?"
"Oh yeah, if you're going on a date in this country, you've gotta scrub that skin raw. There is no smell Americans hate more than the natural smell of other human beings." 
Mabel nodded enthusiastically. "Right!"
"And once you've gotten rid of your real scent you've got to make sure you smell appealing. And that means making sure you smell the most! Cover up any competing suitors' scents with your own!"
Mabel made an uncertain hum. "Okaaay, sooo... what would you call an appropriate fragrance for a first date?"
He wasn't sure he liked the sound of the hum. "First date? You've got to make a strong impression, and set the mood for romance," he told the doll, so he didn't have to watch Mabel pass judgment. "So, I'm thinking... decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris."
Mabel was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Bill glanced at her. She immediately pulled her sweater up to hide her mouth. Voice strained with suppressed laughter, she said, "You don't think, maybe... floral scents...?"
Who did she think she was laughing at! He directed his attention back to Mabel's doll. The tiger didn't judge him. The tiger thought all his ideas were brilliant. "Is this guy looking for a garden or a girlfriend? I know ninety percent of the soaps and shampoos on the market are designed to make you smell like a fruit salad on the beach, but you humans don't know the first thing about what activates your own monkey-brained reproductive urges! Trust me: decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris! They reek of raw sex appeal!"
"What's ambergris?"
"It's a staple fragrance in the perfume industry! Some of the most popular scents in Hollywood have ambergris base notes!"
"Okay," Mabel said, "but what is it?"
"Okay so," Bill said, "when a sperm whale gets so constipated it kills 'em, the rest of its body rots off while the turd floats to the surface, and after it's bobbed around baking in the sun for a few decades—"
Mabel lay a hand on Bill's knee and gently said, "No." 
"Hey, I'm not the one who invented ambergris, that's your species's idea!"
"Bill, I'm sorry. But you've got the best and worst romance ideas with no in between, and you don't know the difference," Mabel said. "But I promise you're in good hands! I'm the best matchmaker in Gravity Falls! I helped hook up Soos and Melody, Robbie and Tambry, Waddles and Gompers, the Hand Witch and that hunky hiker guy..."
He threw Mabel's doll down on the bed, slumped back against the wall, crossed his arms, and sulked. Then he muttered, "But I've got the best ideas?"
"Oh yeah. You're like an untrained romance prodigy! You just need a liiittle help filtering out the diamonds from the coal."
He grunted. Then he grudgingly admitted, "Getting Waddles and Gompers together is pretty impressive. They have complete opposite political opinions."
"See? I'll have you date ready in no time!"
Bill heaved a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But I'd better at least get a killer makeover out of this."
"Definitely! I'm getting an expert on the case!" She pulled out her phone to send a text. Plus, whatever you're wearing tomorrow? I'm bedazzling the crap out of it."
"Good!"
"But first," Mabel said, "Let's talk about your technique."
####
"Lesson one of Mabel's Guide to Flirting With Humans: pick-up lines! First impressions are super important!"
"Pick-up lines are easy," Bill said. "I know a million of them!"
"That's great! Then this should be easy." Mabel pointed at the picture of Creggy G in the middle of her Sev'ral Timez poster, whom she'd designated as their attractive human for Bill's flirting practice. "Try one out." 
Bill sized up Creggy calculatingly, and said, "You know, your eyeballs are so beautiful."
"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "It's romantic! I love it!"
"—and they'd look even better in my mouth."
Mabel stared at Bill.
"What?" Bill asked. "Too forward? Should I save that for the second date?"
The flirting lesson quickly switched track from teaching Bill how to use a pick-up lines, to teaching Bill what pick-up lines not to use.
And from there, the conversation drifted to a list of subjects Bill wasn't allowed to discuss with the federal agent, which necessitated relocating to the living room so Mabel could set up an easel pad and record all the banned topics. Partway through, Stan drifted in and started throwing in his two cents.
The list of banned flirtation topics included: eyeballs; cannibalism; squid kings; dragonfly mating habits; mandibles; the time and method of living people's future deaths; the cold and lonely heat death of the universe ("Why?! It's a perfect excuse to suggest cuddling for warmth!"); fun get-to-know-you questions like "would you rather kill your mother or your father" or "which conspiracy theories would you most hate to be true"; which conspiracy theories were true; the agent's embarrassing middle school secrets that Bill shouldn't have known about but did; the agent's bald spot; cancer flavors; pending global disasters...
Bill flung his hands in the air. "So what does that leave to talk about?!"
"Anything else," Stan snapped.
"The Chuquicamata open pit copper mine."
"Anything normal."
Bill gave him a look akin to that of a vegetarian who'd just been asked to discuss his favorite cuts of beef. "Have you metme?"
"Try topics that get him in the right mindset for romance," Mabel said. "Like, 'what do you want your future wife's favorite color to be?' Or 'you look like dad material!'"
Bill nodded slowly. "So we're aggressively leading him on. I can work with that. I've never been a fan of subtlety."
"And call him charming," Stan said. "Guys love hearing they're charming. Oh, and tell him his jokes are funny."
"What if he doesn't tell jokes."
"All guys tell jokes when they're flirting! If he's not telling jokes, you're doing something wrong."
"It's true," Mabel said. "Watch any high school romance!" Bill gave them both a dubious look.
Stan glanced up as Ford and Dipper walked by the doorway with Gompers. "Tell 'im, Ford."
"What?"
"All men tell jokes when we're flirting! It's probably in our DNA or something."
Dipper thought about that, and nodded. "I tell jokes when I'm flirting."
Mabel shouted, "You try to tell jokes when you're flirting! Heyooo!"
"Hey."
Ford grimaced. "Usually when I'm flirting, I forget every joke I've ever heard and start asking as many questions as I can think of."
Bill said, "That's because you only flirt with things you want to add to your bestiary!"
"The point still stands." 
Dipper had leaned into the room to read the banned topic list. "Why are conspiracy theories off-limits? He came to Gravity Falls in the first place because he was looking for a paranormal conspiracy."
"Dipper's right," Ford said, "he'd probably be interested in the topic."
Bill flung his hands in the air. "Thank you! That's what I was saying!"
Stan shook his head, "Too close to discussing politics. What if they believe in different conspiracies!"
"Plus, watch this," Mabel said. "Hey Bill, what do you think about Flat Earth theory."
Bill groaned. "I was drunk, those statements were taken out of context, and I can't be held responsible if some idiot with a boat misinterpreted me."
Mabel looked at Ford and Dipper.
Dipper grimaced. "Got it."
Ford nodded. "Conspiracy theories are off-limits."
"This is why you're all single," Bill said.
####
Stan said, "And if you're gonna lie about your job—"
"Which you always should," Bill cut in.
"Obviously! But make sure it's not something too easy to verify. Like, you can't claim to be the governor, what if your date actually voted and knows who the governor is?"
"That's a good point! Margaret was not impressed."
"You're telling me! My suit smelled like broccoli cheese soup for weeks!"
"You shoulda suggested she get the house salad."
"Yeah, I—" Stan cut off. "Wait. How do you know about Margaret? That was twenty years ago!"
Dipper and Ford were in the kitchen, looking for every ingredient they could find that might coax Gompers to release the flash drive the old-fashioned way and listening to the discussion in the living room. Gompers nibbled at a dish towel, oblivious to the fate awaiting him.
Mabel trotted in and patted him as she passed. "Hey, you! You're giving us major trouble, you rascal!"
He bleated at her.
Mabel pushed up to the open fridge next to Dipper, and when he stepped aside to make more room for her, she stepped into his personal space again and leaned into him with her shoulder. "Why are you in the way, bro, jeez!"
"You're in the way!" He leaned against her in turn. "What are you doing in here? Aren't you supposed to be training Bill?"
"Grunkle Stan's taking the lead right now," Mabel said. "My talent is helping people find true love! But his talent is suckering someone into liking you for a day. So I think he's better suited to the task at hand."
"Oh, yeah." Dipper chuckled wryly. "His advice will get you a first date, but not a second date."
Ford muttered, "His technique hasn't changed since high school, I see."
Dipper found the bottle of prune juice he'd been looking for, pulled it out, and stepped back. Mabel yelped when her counterweight disappeared and stumbled sideways into the fridge door.
As Dipper emptied the juice into a mixing bowl, he said, "I'm not sure about this plan. Even with both you and Stan helping. I know Bill's good at tricking people, but... he's so annoying. And not in a lovable way."
"Don't undersell him!" Mabel said. She'd retrieved a pitcher of Mabel Juice and was dumping a full bottle of sprinkles into it—hardcore romance training required high stamina. "He has the potential to be a dreamboat!"
Ford muttered, "He's a manipulative, murderous monster." He was searching through all the cans they'd moved to the kitchen counter for beans.
"Those don't have to be mutually exclusive," Mabel insisted. "Serial killers get girlfriends. Sometimes after they're arrested!"
"I'mmm not seeing a dreamboat," Dipper said. "More like a shipwreck. I mean, when you were trying to come up with a list of romantic date foods, he suggested blood licked off your date's teeth."
"And he was right!" Mabel said. "Vampires, bro-bro!"
"Okay, but I don't think he was talking about teeth that were still attached to his date's skull!"
"He didn't say they weren't attached," said Mabel, with flagging conviction that suggested she hadn't considered that and was realizing Dipper was probably right.
"And five minutes ago you and Stan told him he should pretend to be a princess, and he told you he'd be great at that because he started an Internet dating service that matches up lonely widows with overseas con artists pretending to be deposed princes."
"Well," Mabel said sheepishly.
"And then he tried to talk you two into investing in a pyramid scheme to fund his dating service."
"But we didn't invest!" Mabel said.
"Only because you looked it up on your phone and discovered he'd made it up!"
"I mean, until then, it sounded romantic!" Mabel flung her hands out in a wide shrug. (Something about the gesture looked strange to Ford.) "Finding a second chance at love with a mysterious foreign criminal with a glamorous false identity? That'd be great if it was real!"
"Mabel, it's a scam," Dipper said exasperatedly.
"And do scam artists not deserve love, too?!" Mabel pounded a fist on the table emphatically. "What about Grunkle Stan! He deserves love! A rich overseas widow would be perfect for him!"
"That's not— The point is, Bill's not romantic!" Dipper said. "This plan isn't going to work!"
Ford set half a dozen bean cans next to Dipper's mixing bowl. "He doesn't need to be romantic," he said. "He only needs to be charismatic. And for all his flaws, he's certainly that." Planets will orbit stars and black holes just the same—and not even realize the difference. "He doesn't have to actually win Agent Powers's heart. He only has to keep his attention for a few hours. By the time Bill stops dazzling Powers long enough for him to see the red flags, we'll have the flash drive." He nodded toward Gompers. "If we get it before the agents return with a warrant, we might not even need Bill to distract him."
Dipper sighed. "Then let's hope Gompers likes prunes."
"Come on! Show a little faith!" Mabel said.
Ford muttered, "The last time I put my faith in Bill..." Dipper gestured emphatically at Ford in agreement.
"Not in Bill! In me! Mark my words, Grunkle Ford—I'll get this Cinderella ready to meet his Prince Charming if I have to summon every mouse in Gravity Falls to help sew his ballgown!"
"Please don't summon the wildlife again," Dipper groaned. "The last time you did that, huge spiders kept appearing in our room for a week."
Mabel's pocket vibrated; she pulled out her phone and gasped. She chugged down the rest of her juice in three sickly sweet gulps and bolted from the room. "Biiill! Your personal style consultant texted back!"
"My who?"
She dragged him out of the living room by the wrist. "Come on!"
Ford watched them run up the stairs, then started searching through their cereal boxes for the high fiber one. Tentatively, he asked, "Mabel doesn't actually think we're trying to get Bill and the agent together, does she?" The Prince Charming comment was concerning.
"I don't know," Dipper sighed. "A few days ago she started talking about trying to get Bill a love life? Maybe she sees this as a practice round."
"Really? Why, did he say he wants to date people?" If he wanted to get out of the shack to emotionally prey on the locals one-on-one without supervision...
"I don't think she's even told him yet. It's part of her project to... reintegrate him into society? She probably thinks the power of love can rehabilitate him." Dipper sighed. "She's setting herself up for disappointment. He's been conning people into thinking he's a good guy for billions of years, right? If being loved could fix him, he'd be an angel by now."
"Instead, he's just gotten better at pretending to be an angel," Ford said ruefully. "I'm inclined to agree with you." He found the cereal he'd been looking for and set it on the table by Dipper. "But then... we let him live, didn't we? Because we all hope we're wrong. I suppose that doesn't make us that different from Mabel."
Dipper shook his head emphatically. "Not me." He dumped one of the cans of beans into the prune juice a little harder than necessary. "I let him live for two reasons: because of Mabel, and because of that prophecy. And he doesn't have to change to fulfill some prophecy to save us—when it comes, he might just be trying to save his own stupid butt, too."
"I suppose so." Right—of course, even if he'd agreed to spare Bill, Dipper still didn't have any real hope for him beyond his usefulness.
Over the past month, Ford hadn't seen anything more sympathetic out of Bill than Dipper had. He wondered at himself for even being willing to consider Bill might change. When had Ford changed enough to consider it? Or was he just more susceptible to Bill's same old tricks?
"You don't remember the whole prophecy yet, do you?" Ford asked. "What if this is what it was about? Saving our family from the government because he's the only person the lead agent finds attractive enough to distract him?"
Dipper pulled a face. "I hope not," he said. "After everything he put us through? He owes us a fight to the death with an interdimensional eldritch god."
"Now that's a sight I'd pay to see."
####
MABEL: Heyyy Paz, can I ask for a small favor. I have a friend that needs a MAJOR MAKEOVER!! 😿 Like the FULL PRINCESS TRANSFORMATION treatment!! Can you help him?
PACIFICA: Can't, I'm suuuper busy today. I have the lunch shift AND grooming day at the ranch.
PACIFICA: Plus, why would I help some total rando? 😒
MABEL: Because it's my friend with the beautiful golden hair.
PACIFICA: asldkfggh
PACIFICA: OK fine come by the ranch after work
PACIFICA: and send me a picture of his skin next to a white paper so I can grab some foundations to try out.
####
Bill took a piece of paper and a marker, wrote "Make me beautiful!" and dotted the I and the exclamation point with hearts, flopped the least sunburned part of his arm next to the paper for Mabel to take a picture, and leaned away to keep his face out of it.
As Mabel snapped a couple pictures, she said, "Okay, before we visit Pacifica, I have to warn you. She can be a liiittle bit mean when it comes to fashion. So don't get mad at her, okay? It's how she shows she cares!"
"No it's not," Bill said.
"No, it's not," Mabel conceded. "But it doesn't mean she doesn't care. That's just... how she relates to other people! By insulting their fashion, style, and body. And family. And finances."
"Don't worry, star girl. I can take it."
"But I mean, she might be really, really, super mean about your looks," Mabel said. "And you cannot curse her or threaten to turn her bones into flutes or do anything Bill-ish like that. Promise me."
"Hey, bone flutes! That sounds like a fun arts and crafts project, right?"
"Bill!"
"Re-lax, it'll be fine," Bill said. "She's just your garden-variety pageant girl with an overly-critical mom who tried to relive her glory years through her daughter! I can handle a teenage ex-beauty queen. I'm an expert on those types."
Skeptically, Mabel said, "Really?" She was slowly coming to realize that, in Bill's opinion, he was the expert on everything.
"Oh yeah. I spent years eyelid deep in the pageant scene."
"You did?" she said, surprised. "How come? Did you try to trick a beauty pageant into building your portal or something like that?"
Bill stared at Mabel.
####
Outside the flat hospital, it was a beautiful, peaceful morning. The air was clear, the unseen sun was shining brightly from some unknown dimension, and some 2D equivalent to a bird was chirping in some 2D equivalent to a tree.
And then the hospital doors crashed open with such force that passing shapes momentarily suspected that someone had set off a bomb.
"—don't give me that look, if you'd hustled your hypotenuse and had your birthday yesterday, we wouldn't be in such a rush! You're just lucky you came out so cute, or—" An exhausted, dull pinkish triangle charged out the doors with a very tiny, squishy yellow triangle in her trembling arm. She turned to shout behind her—"Hurry up! There's only two hours until the Best Baby Pageant and he is not going to miss it!"
—and was followed closely by a horrified blue triangle carrying a hat in one hand and a cane in the other. "But Scalene, the doctors still have to do those tests to check for—"
"They can test him later! If he's got some horrible birth defect, he'll still have it after he's won a trophy!" Without slowing, Scalene turned and held the baby out toward the other triangle. The squishy new shape gawked at him in mild befuddlement. "Look at this kid, Euclid! Most newborn brats look like cranky raisins, but he's less than an hour old and he's already bright-eyed and smooth-sided! He was born with the face of a pageant winner—"
Not looking where she was going, she ran into a tree. The bird flew off in a panic, Scalene lost her balance, and she nearly dropped the baby. Euclid caught him, caught her, and held her steady while she leaned dizzily against the tree. "Lene. You should be on bedrest right now. Maybe we should just, you know, take a moment to process..."
"Process what! We have our little angle. Am I supposed to sit in a hospital bed staring at the afterbirth?!"
While Euclid stared at her in shock, she snatched the child back, pushed him away, and wobbled back upright. "What kind of a lazy mother would I be if I was sleeping instead of making my child a winner! You want him to start off life on the right foot, don't you?"
Defeated, Euclid said, "All right. I'll take care of the... the paperwork. At least bring your cane."
"I don't need it. I'm fine."
"Fine?! You just..." He gestured at her, gestured at the brand-spanking-new baby, gestured at her again, then flung his hands up in defeat. "If you drop our baby, I'm divorcing you."
She sighed huffily. "You're so dramatic." But she snatched the cane out of his hand anyway and stormed away, declaring loudly enough that shapes on the other side of the street turned to stare: "If the mayor doesn't declare my Billy the greatest baby in the whole godforsaken world, I'm grabbing the biggest trophy in the room and bashing his eye in!"
####
Bill shrugged at Mabel. "Sure," he said. "Something like that."
####
Gompers stared down at the bowl set on the floor in front of him.
It contained black beans, broccoli, coffee grounds, fiber-enriched whole-grain cereal, oatmeal, and an avocado and half a sweet potato mashed together into an orange-green mush, all stewing in a prune juice soup.
Gompers looked up.
Dipper and Ford were crouched across from him, watching expectantly. 
Gompers bleated balefully at them.
"Go on!" Ford nudged the bowl closer. "It's good for you."
Gompers knew a lie when he heard one. He turned his nose up at the mix.
"I don't get it," Dipper said. "He eats everything. What's wrong with this stuff?"
"I haven't a clue."
"Maybe it's the broccoli?" 
Ford gave him a quizzical look. "Why broccoli?"
Dipper shrugged. "I don't like broccoli, I don't know why he would."
"Hmm." Mystified, Ford propped his chin in his hand and stared into Gompers's eyes. Gompers stared back. Gompers stared into his soul. Gompers didn't blink.
Ford was dragged from this session of nonconsensual soul-searching by the sound of footsteps and Mabel's voice drifting down the stairs: "Listen, you know I love your sense of fashion! All I'm saying is everyone loves kittens, but snakes? That's a pretty niche fashion market! You're not gonna get a lot of takers."
"No, hey, hear me out," Bill said. "I listened to your professional matchmaker advice, now you've got to listen to my professional heartbreaker advice. You'll thank me for this one day! This is my number one romance tip: if you wanna impress a date, strap cobras to your arms and call yourself 'Johnny Cobra-Arms.' It works every time. Guaranteed."
(Dipper snorted.)
"Whaaat? No way," Mabel said. "Seriously, what?"
"It's true! I workshopped this! I've experimented across parallel timelines! It works."
"Quit messing with me, Bill."
"You think I would ever mislead you? No. Picture this." As the pair turned the corner on the stairs, Bill was spreading his hands in front of himself as though gesturing to the scene he wanted Mabel to imagine. "You see a guy, maybe a year older than you, kinda cute but nothing to write home about, maybe a 6/10. Got him in your mind's eye?"
A look of intense concentration crossed Mabel's face as she engaged her Imagination. "Yeah?"
"Okay, now imagine he—" Bill reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. "Where are my shoes." He raised his voice, "Who moved my fisshoes! I left them right— oh, there they are." He disappeared into the living room. "Imagine your 6/10 has two big snakes wrapped around his arms. And he catches your eye from across the club, comes up to you, and says..." Bill's voice dropped to a pitch that was nearly in the range of an average adult human male, "'Hey. Name's Johnny Cobra-Arms. What's yours?'"
Mabel thought about it. Her eyes slowly widened in amazement. "Oh my god, it would totally work on me."
Bill re-emerged into the entryway, fish shoes donned. "See?" 
"It made him hot! What the heck, how did that happen!"
"See?! It works every time!" He shouted toward the kitchen, "Hey, we're leaving for Alpaca's! I'm taking the car!"
"No you're not," Ford said.
Bill spread his hands in a shrug. "Worth a shot!" He grabbed his umbrella and the magic friendship bracelets from the coat rack and waited for Mabel to open the door. "See, it's the best possible first impression. It shows he's got a sense of humor, he's quirky, he's a little bit dangerous, he's got a great sense of fashion, he's a world traveler, he's good with animals..." The door swung shut behind them. 
The way Bill had shrugged stuck in Ford's mind. 
In his true form, Bill didn't have shoulders. His arms extended out of his sides like the trunks of saplings extending from the surface of flood waters, and they glided around his perimeter in a way that defied conventional physical biology. No joints. 
When he shrugged in his human body, sometimes he'd bob his shoulders up and down in a deliberate mimicry of how humans performed the gesture; and lately, as Bill got used to moving his new body, Ford had seen him sluggishly raise a shoulder when he was too exhausted to gesture more expressively. But most of the time, he shrugged like he still didn't have shoulders. He'd spread his arms, bend his elbows, usually forming a W shape but sometimes when he was particularly emphatic forming a shape like football goalposts, and if he really wanted to make his meaning clear he'd twitch his upturned palms up the way a human would twitch their shoulders.
He did it all the time. He'd done it just now. The gesture was so natural on Bill that Ford had never realized how unnaturalit was on a human—until he'd seen Mabel make the exact same gesture earlier.
She was copying Bill's body language. He wondered if she knew.
He'd have to keep an eye on that.
"Hope Agent Powers is into snakes," Dipper muttered.
Ford laughed—then wondered whether someone pulling the Johnny Cobra-Arms trick would've worked on him. If by now nothing had made him take an interest in a basic, garden-variety human being, he doubted anything could... but, admittedly, he'd at least consider hanging out with Johnny. He sounded like an intriguing character. "If that's the worst thing Bill subjects him to, he'll be getting off light."
With a twinge of guilt, Ford realized just how true that was. Ford was no stranger to having to turn down the volume on his conscience for the greater good—and there were few greater goods than protecting his family—but...
He might not know Powers, but he did know that, whether Bill succeeded in seducing him or not, the man didn't deserve what he was about to be subjected to.
####
(Now that this chapter's finally out, may there be no further delays for a good long while, ugh.
Here's your "what was changed in the wake of TBOB" update: obviously, since we got five whole pages on Bill's beliefs about romance, a lot of that got incorporated into this chapter—the first and last scenes were basically written entirely in response to TBOB.
The scene with Scalene & Euclid, obviously, got their names & descriptions from TBOB & TINAWDC (and yeah, yeah, i'm eventually gonna go back to earlier chapters and edit out Bill's mom being a line so it matches up with canon), and it's obvious what the "best baby pageant" is a reference to (so you can guess whether Bill won)—but Bill being a pageant kid due to his mom was already part of the plans long before TBOB, so I just stuck a couple canon details into the story I was already writing. We were already gonna get into Bill's childhood this chapter & next (as you'll see next week).
Beyond that, most of the chapter was already in its present form before TBOB—up to & including Bill having a list of topics he thinks are acceptable for dates that no rational human would agree with—and all TBOB added was a couple tiny details (like... "mandibles".)
The fact that the list of things that were influenced by TBOB is so much longer than usual is part of the reason this chapter's two whole weeks late lmao.
Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed, happy new year, and I'm looking forward to (finally) hearing your thoughts on the first fresh chapter of 2025!
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tillsfan · 1 month ago
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new official arts analysis..
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i really like how. doll-like sua looks here. i love when vivimeng depict sua as a husk of a person, dehumanizing her because she really had nothing without mizi.
the sua on the right seems very content, leaning into her reflection. she honestly seems kind of proud in my opinion. this is her satisfied with her decisionto sacrifice herself without mizi’s knowledge, content with the happy lives they lived while they could live it. sua was accepting of her death, happy it would be her and not mizi, because she KNOWS she wouldn’t survive on her own. mizi is strong, sua isn’t. we also know sua is very selfish. maybe she looks so content because she knows mizi will continue to think of her? maybe she’s aware of the impact this would have on mizi, how she will never leave mizi’s mind, making it easier to accept her own sacrifice.
the sua on the left is creepy, soulless. i always imagined this version of sua is mizi’s current perception of her.. sua was still an angel in her eyes, she was literally mizi’s god, but mizi didn’t know as much about sua as she thought. she knew nothing at all. the sua she knows now is not the sua she knew previously, the innocent and happy sua she grew up with. she’s a shell of a person now, haunting mizi’s mind. did sua plan this? how did she know this would happen? why didn’t she tell me? why did she lie to me? i’m sure questions like these are circling in mizi’s mind, never to be answered.
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ivan looks. deranged. to start. he’s way more focused on the camera than sua, looking down on us. also unlike sua, he’s sweating and crying(?), and is leaning away from the reflection. this immediately pushes the fact that ivan didn’t exactly plan his death like sua did hers. we’ll never truly know what was going through his mind, but i always felt like his lash out at till was an impulsive decision. he knew one of them was going to die, and when he saw till no longer fighting, he realized the reality that he wouldn’t be able to keep on going without till. so he ran, letting out all his emotions in his final moments. he is also a very selfish character, so i feel he’s ecstatic that in the end, he got to leave a lasting impression on till like he wanted. either that, or he’s grateful he finally got to let out all his emotions towards till, making till suffer yet saving him in his final moments.
another detail i noticed is that the ivan’s hands aren’t touching each other like sua’s, his hands have their backs faced to each other. the ivan on the left isn’t ivan’s true nature, it’s the facade he’s known to have showed those around him. he’s detached from this persona he put up, therefore not touching his palms. he’s also looking at us like he KNOWS something we don’t. unreliable narrator ivan strikes again.
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okay so till’s is SIGNIFICANTLY different than both ivan and sua’s. he’s the only one facing away from us, the blood on him not visible. the side of his injury is also facing away from us. there’s also a lack of branding on him. i feel this is the most obvious piece we’ve gotten signifying that he’s going to be alive. they’re deliberately hiding any way for us to see the aftermath of his injury.. vivimeng has been treating till’s supposed death So much more differently than they’ve treated the other characters deaths. in his final comic, his post ‘death’ official art, and now this (which i will elaborate more on in a different post. i have an 10+ paragraph long analysis on why i believe till is alive LOL..)
his reflection is also not a normal mirror—it’s a true mirror. the hand placement isn’t mirrored like ivan and sua’s, it’s as if he’s directly holding out to the till in front of him. i believe he has a true mirror because he has always been true to himself. he never put up a facade or lied like ivan and sua did, as he never needed to. he was always his most authentic self, not only living for another person like the other true, but also for himself. we don’t see the mirror till’s expression, but we can see his mouth. he’s frowning, showing a lack of acceptance to his fate. i genuinely think he’s going to be okay. he’s a fighter, even in this photo, he’s still fighting. he refuses to accept that it’s his time to go, not sparing us a mere glance of assertion regarding his death.
note that i’m not saying these are the true meanings! just how i interpreted it. <3
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potatobugxo · 28 days ago
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Hi 😭 this is my first time requesting something I’m actually so embarrassing I love your work so much I was wondering if you could do the tulpar reacting to having a hypersexual partner.
ofc! and tysm im so glad you like my writings 💚
im not entirely fully educated on hypersexuality and people's different experiences with it but I did my best with the knowledge I have! enjoy!
warnings: NSFW themes, and Jimmy
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đŸ€curlyđŸ€
-so you're trying to get into curly's pants like 24/7 I mean this man is delicious looking okay
-curly knows full well that you're hypersexual and unfortunately doesn't have quite as high of a sex drive as you, but he does whatever he can to satiate his partner's desires!
-if you ever feel guilty about your desires don't be! curly is supportive of you all the way through it, and will do his best to try and understand how you're feeling at all times
💚jimmy💚
-SOOOO um yeah
-this man matches your freak fr
-jimmy isn't hypersexual but got dayum is he also chronically horny for you
-yall will be doing it like animals on the daily just because you can't get enough of each other
-he doesn't entirely get WHY you're hypersexual, whether it be from trauma or you're just born like this, but either way he's weirdly supportive of it indulge you an unhealthy amount (probably)
💙Anya💙
-like curly she doesn't have a very high sex drive, maybe even less so
-she did extensive research on hypersexuality before you two officially started dating because she wanted to educate herself on what having a person like that as a partner would be like
-we'll just say she learned the art of oral pleasure for your sake alone
-if you ever feel bad about your sexual fantasies or how intense your desires are anya will be here to support and reassure you that it is completely alright by her and that she'll help you out in any way she can
đŸ©·daisukeđŸ©·
-daisuke is a very hyper person in general, and being so young he also has a very high sex drive, so y'all get along in that department perfectly!
-hes always super willing to indulge in whatever you wanna do with him in the moment
💛swansea💛
-if you have any freaky fantasies he will most definitely start giving you new ideas that he thinks you two should try out
-probably the least sexual person here, I mean he's grandpa age let's be real
-theres no way he would be able to match your hypersexuality but he will let you get off on him from time to time
-you do feel guilty quite often that you have so many fantasies you want to fulfill with him and him not matching your stamina or drive but he's here to reassure you you're doing him no wrong
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