#can i be a berserk fan yet

[notmerridew]

Guts : ]

[ckret2]

Chapter 31 of human Bill grudgingly enduring being the Pines' prisoner because the Henchmaniacs won't take his call: Summerween night! Everyone gets ridiculous costumes!

The Summerween Trickster's buddies are attempting to resurrect him. Robbie's making a music video. Bill's attempting to woo Ford back into friendship, to terrify Dipper with cursed knowledge, and to recover his dignity from THE most gentle chastising imaginable, and he only succeeds in 1 out of 3 of these endeavors:

It's not this one. He's just gotta process these emotions while wearing that stupid wig.

####

Soos was putting the final touches on his cosplay (the suave and mysterious Masked Guy In A Suit, love interest of the heroine from the classic anime Teenage Planetary Soldier Girls) when he heard the phone ring in the office. "Hold on, I'll get it!" He hurried downstairs, ducked under a construction paper chain Mabel had strung over the door, picked up the phone, and said, "Hello?"

A mysterious voice droned, "The sun sets a deep blood red."

"Oh, no thanks, we don't want any." Soos hung up, sighed happily, and said, "Ah, Summerween. Always brings out the weirdos."

"Hey Soos!" Mabel ducked into the doorway. "Where's the candy bowl?"

"Oh, hey Hambone. It's in my bedroom." He put on a stage whisper. "I put it in there so Bill couldn't steal it."

"Thanks Soos!" She ran upstairs.

Dipper and Bill waited downstairs, the tension thick between them (on Dipper's side, anyway; Bill—watching a black-and-white horror movie, sipping at a can of cider, and brooding over going to voicemail—didn't notice). Dipper was waiting by the door in a folding chair; but he kept glancing toward Bill in the living room. When the silence got too much to bear, he asked, "Okay, what are you dressed as?"

Bill was wearing a brown bedsheet toga (the most historically-accurate part of his costume); a cheap wig of a teased mullet that had ended up mostly red with yellow streaks, forming a plume of hair right over his head and then a long straight tail he'd draped over his shoulder; and a bunch of paper faux-Greek homes taped all around the hem of his toga, forming a ring around his calves.

"And are those my sandals?" Dipper asked.

"Take it up with Mabel, she loaned them on your behalf," Bill said. "I'm not telling my costume. You have to guess it."

"Seriously?" Dipper sighed. It had to be a god, gods towered over their mortals' temples. What god would wear brown? "I don't know—Demeter?"

"What? No. Do I seem like the Demeter type? Pathetic." Bill waved off his guess. As Mabel ran downstairs, Bill said, "Hey, Shooting Star, you haven't made your official guess yet."

Without hesitation, Mabel said, "A time-traveling hair metal singer touring the Roman Empire and trying to find a way home before his hair dye runs out."

"Wrong, but I would love to live in the world you've dreamed up." He meandered into the entryway to join Mabel as she plopped down in the second chair by the door.

Dipper screwed up his face. "Are you helping us answer the door?"

"No, you're helping me answer the door. I'm cursed, remember?" Bill leaned over Mabel's shoulder, dug into the candy bowl, and popped a lollipop in his mouth. "But you're not getting rid of me, if that's what you're asking."

Soos headed to the door, cape billowing dramatically behind him. "Hey dudes. Hey Bill." He paused in the door, studying Bill. "Hey! Is that a Bobo the Uncouth Berserker cosplay?"

Bill blinked. "Who?"

"Bobo the Uncouth Berserker! You've gotta read Bobo. He's this primitive hero descended from lost Lemuria who goes on daring adventures through the lush impenetrable jungles of Central Europe. He's got this comic that was so popular it spawned an anime, which got an American movie adaptation, which formed the basis of a second comic continuity that isn't as critically acclaimed as the original but has drawn in a lot of new fans... and..." Soos petered out. "You're not Bobo, are you."

Bill shook his head. "Thanks for playing."

"Aw." Soos's shoulders slumped. "Anyway—me and Melody are gonna be at the cosplay contest at the theater. I'll keep my phone on in case of monsters."

"We'll be fine!" Mabel said. "Go have fun!"

"You too!" With a dramatic flourish of his cape, Soos disappeared into the night.

Bill watched Soos go enviously. He could have been given a human body that looked that good in a suit and top hat, but was he? No. It wasn't fair. And Soos didn't even wear the right hat size.

Dipper glanced sideways at Bill. "Hey. Is... Lemuria real?"

"Not anymore." Bill perked up as Stan passed by, dressed like Frankenstein's monster. "Hey, Stanley! You haven't guessed yet. What am I?"

Stan surveyed him. "White columned buildings, Statue of Liberty dress, and a red clown wig. I dunno, the American government?"

Bill squawked in laughter. "That's my favorite wrong answer so far. I like you, Stanley." He fished a chocolate bar out of the bowl and held it out.

Stan grunted in disapproval, but accepted the candy. "If any of you need me, I'm gonna be up on the roof, terrifying kids." He held up a boombox and a cassette that said "Spooky Sound Effects of Halloween". "If you hear screaming children, don't worry: that means I'm winning."

"Where's your brother?" Bill asked.

"Avoiding you." Stan passed through the living room and left.

Bill's shoulders slumped; but he just dug into the candy bowl for more chocolate. Then the first trick-or-treater knocked on the door, and Dipper jumped up in relief to answer it.

The shack didn't attract quite as many trick-or-treaters as the houses closer to the center of town, but they got a steady stream of children, and more than they'd gotten the year before. Between visitors, Bill dug into their candy stock, gleefully ignoring Dipper's complaints. After the fourth or fifth visitor, Dipper and Mabel realized that Bill was covering up the amount of candy he'd pilfered by meticulously re-folding the empty wrappers and putting them back in the bowl.

"It's fair play," Bill said. He untwisted one end of a Twisty Roll tube, squeezed out the candy, blew into the wrapper to re-inflate it, and twisted the end shut again. "The kids are trick-or-treating, right? Sometimes they get treats and sometimes they get tricks."

"Come on, seriously?" Dipper said. "Even for you this is low. You're literally taking candy from babies."

"The babies are trying to take candy from us. I have no sympathy." With the precision of an origami master, Bill refolded a paper fruit chew wrapper into a box and dropped it back into the bowl.

"They're supposed to take candy from us, that's how the holiday works." Dipper looked at Mabel for support.

But she was holding up an empty 3 Fencers wrapper and squeezing it lightly between her fingers. "Wow. How did you make the wrapper puffy again? It's so convincing."

Bill shot Dipper a nasty smile, then turned to Mabel and said magnanimously, "I'll teach you everything I know." He twirled a glue stick between his fingers.

Another trick-or-treater knocked, and Dipper answered.

"Trick or treat! Please give us the worst candy you have."

Mabel blinked, leaning around Dipper to see who was outside. "Wait, what?"

Outside stood a purple-furred monster with a dozen limbs from a dozen different creatures. He gasped in surprise. "Ohhh, twin costumes! That's so cute! What are you two, haunted dolls?"

Dipper took a surprised step back. "Limby Jimmy?"

The monster was silent a moment, taken aback. He took off a bear mask he'd made out of a paper plate. "Is it that obvious?"

Mabel asked, "Have we...?"

Dipper said, "Oh! Sorry—Mabel, this is Limby Jimmy, I ran into him last year in the Crawlspace under town when I was trying to get your face back—"

Helpfully, Bill threw in, "He's Gravity Falls' most accomplished arms dealer. And legs dealer, and tails dealer, and ears dealer..."

"Limby, this is my sister Mabel. Actually, I don't know if I ever introduced myself—"

Limby Jimmy cut in, "Ohhh, yeah, I remember you! You're Troll Boy, right?"

Dipper winced. "It's—it's Dipper, actually." He paused. "Wow. We meet a lot of weird people."

"Nice to meet you, Jimmy!" Mabel held out a hand. After a moment of thought, Jimmy elected to shake it with a tentacle and a dog's paw.

"What are you doing up here?" Dipper asked. "Is Summerween the one night of the year that Gravity Falls' monsters can walk among humans without fear?"

"Oh no, I'm terrified. I wouldn't be out here if I wasn't collecting donations," Jimmy said.

"Donations?"

Jimmy hesitated, then lowered his voice. "You've been in the Crawlspace, so, you and your sister are cool, but is the lady...?" He wiggled a hoof toward Bill.

Coolly, Bill said, "I'm actually an ancient interdimensional energy being cursed to wear a human form."

Dipper and Mabel flinched in alarm and rounded on Bill, hissing, "Bill!" "Shhh!"

Ignoring them, Bill said, "So, continue."

"Oh," Jimmy said brightly. "That's all right then, yuk yuk." He wiggled his multitude of right arms. "I don't know if you humans have heard yet, but the Summerween Trickster got eaten to death last summer! It's really sad!"

Dipper and Mabel, who had watched as he was eaten to death, stayed quiet.

"But probably happy for him?" Jimmy mused. "Since I think that's what he wanted? But it's sad for the rest of his poker group, we all miss him! So I'm out here with Doug—"

"Who?" Dipper asked, looking around the porch for a second monster.

"Oh, he's back there." Jimmy pointed toward a tree at the edge of the clearing around the Mystery Shack. The tree chittered unnervingly. "We're going around collecting donations to resurrect the Trickster! Or... re-summon him? Or however this works. We never really asked him how he came to exist, it seemed rude."

"Naturally," Bill said. "You can't just ask a freak what made him so freaky. It's a sensitive topic."

"Right! You understand," Jimmy said. "Anyway, we need a lot of crappy candy!" He looked at their bowl. "Which pieces have the kids been ignoring this year?"

Mabel had started bouncing on the balls of her dusty Victorian ghost shoes; and the moment she had a turn to speak, she squealed in excitement. "You're the Summerween Trickster's friend! That's perfect! Stay here, I'll be right back!" She shoved the candy bowl into Bill's arms and zoomed up the stairs. "I've got some stuff for him!"

Bill looked at the bowl, looked at the stairs, shoved the candy in Dipper's arms, and followed Mabel. "Hey, Shooting Star? What are you doing?"

Her voice drifted down the stairs: "Getting a donation! I'll be just a minute!"

"Hold on, you're actually helping that guy?" Bill laughed. "Why?" He climbed high enough to poke his head above the attic floor  and lowered his voice so Jimmy couldn't hear. "I wasn't paying that much attention last Summerween, but I got the impression from your little costume store brawl that the Trickster was trying to kill you kids. Am I missing something?"

"I mean, yeah, he was—but he was in a really bad place back then, that doesn't mean he deserves to be dead for it. And now he knows someone out there wants to eat him, so maybe he'll be less insecure and evil." Mabel laughed, "Anyway, the Trickster isn't that bad! He didn't try to kill me half as hard as you did!"

Bill froze a couple of steps from the top of the stairs. He didn't move for a few seconds; and then wordlessly, he slunk back downstairs.

Dipper watched as Bill, face beet red, trudged into the living room. "Hey. What's Mabel...?"

"How should I know." Bill curled up on the couch, picked up the can of cider he'd been drinking earlier, shotgunned it, and glowered at the horror movie on TV.

Dipper considered Bill—all alone in the living room and not doing anything important—and considered Mabel, upstairs; and said, "Hey, Jimmy. Do you mind waiting out here until Mabel gets back."

"Sure! I don't have any plans." Jimmy rocked back on his many heels.

"Cool. Thanks." Dipper shut the door.

He sidled oh so very casually into the living room and leaned against the TV. "Guess it's just the two of us right now."

Bill's gaze didn't waver from the TV. "Terrific counting skills, Troll Boy." He popped open another cider can.

Dipper grit his teeth. Let it go. "Sooo! You're from the second dimension, huh? What's that like?" (His voice cracked embarrassingly on "that.") "Just—just curious. Making friendly conversation. Caaasual conversation." He flashed a pair of finger guns at Bill, to underscore just how casual he was. "Yyyep." Witness the junior paranormal investigator in action.

Bill turned the cold, empty eyes of a killer on Dipper. He took a long, slow sip from his cider. And he asked himself: what can I say that will make this stupid boy regret ever daring to speak to me?

Bill smiled. "Yeah. Sure. Okay," he said. "You wanna know what it's like? Have you ever read the Allegory of the Cave?"

Dipper hesitated. "By... Plato?"

"That one. You know—ignorance is like being a prisoner chained in a cave, watching shadow puppets being cast on a wall, and thinking they're reality; and having knowledge is like being outside the cave in the sunlight, seeing the real shapes that are casting the shadows—"

"I have read it, actually," Dipper said, a tad defensively. "It was for extra credit in—"

"English class, I know."

Dipper frowned; but he soldiered on. "So... living in the second dimension is like being chained in a cave, staring at the shadows on the wall, and thinking that's reality? Bleak."

Bill laughed so loudly that Dipper started. "Wow, you're so dumb! Use your brain, kid: it's the second dimension. You're not the prisoner: you're the shadow on the wall." Bill's lip curled in a sneer, "An illusion in somebody else's allegory. And the only one who can see the cave's exit... is you. That's what the second dimension is like!" He laughed again. It sounded forced.

"Oh," Dipper mumbled. He tried to wrap his head around the idea of being a living metaphor for ignorance. "Sounds... pretty bad?"

"Awful," Bill agreed. "Doesn't hold a candle to what your dimension has going on, though."

"Wh... why, what's going on in the third dimension?"

Bill gave him a malicious smile, and Dipper had the sinking feeling he'd just walked into an obvious trap. "You idiot, you still think you're in the third dimension? Really?"

Was that a trick question? What answer was Bill looking for? What could this be if not the third dimension? "Nnooo?"

"Wow. I can really see why you're a straight-A's honors student," Bill said. "You're so good at figuring out what answer the test wants and regurgitating it—even if you don't actually understand it at all." He heaved himself back to his feet; and Dipper was sure there was something threatening in the movement—something that reminded Dipper that he was talking to a dangerously unstable extinction level event precariously packed into an unsteady human body. "Although copying the year of the Louisiana Purchase off of Brandon's test in fifth grade  probably didn't hurt, did it."

Dipper's stomach dropped. The secret shame buried beneath the foundation of his honors roll-worthy record. Pull that out and his entire academic career came toppling down. He'd get kicked out of the honors classes. He'd go to jail. Was cheating against the law? "H... how did—?"

"What year was the Louisiana Purchase?"

Dipper's brain immediately went blank. He was silent, trapped in the paralyzing intensity of Bill's gaze. After several terrifying seconds, he croaked, "1803?" and hoped he was right.

"Attaboy. Too bad you couldn't have learned that a little sooner, isn't it?" As he spoke, Bill had closed in on Dipper until he'd backed him into the corner behind the TV set, filling Dipper's exit route with one hand on the TV and the other on the wall. "But we were talking about dimensions, weren't we! Whaddaya like to read, kid," Bill asked too casually, "do you like cosmic horror? Do you know what real 'cosmic horror' is?"

Dipper regretted this conversation completely.

"It's having an eyeball on the inside of your body, and seeing another dimension through it. And ohoho, I think you'd be amazed at the things I can see from here—"

Dipper got the distinct impression that if he didn't get out of this conversation, he would only hear things he'd be telling his therapist about for months. "Cool! Good talk, man. Hey Mabel?" (That was an absolutely humiliating voice crack.) "How's it going?"

A pause. "I think I need help!"

"Coming!" Dipper ran behind the TV to escape Bill and gratefully bolted upstairs.

The kid had caved so fast. And Bill had only just been getting started. He smirked, sat, and turned back to the movie.

A moment later, Mabel and Dipper came back downstairs, carrying four bulging plastic grocery bags. Mabel set one by her feet, opened the door, and shoved the first bag into Jimmy's arms. "Here! You can give these to the Trickster!" She shoved over the second bag.

Jimmy stumbled back under the weight. "Whoa there! What is this?"

"Candy chalk-hearts! I completely bought out the leftovers after Valentine's Day," Mabel said. "I wanted to make sure that if we met the Trickster again, I could let him know he's loved and appreciated as the terrifying avatar of spooky holiday spirit that he is! And that I also respect that he's made out of gross candy nobody likes to eat." She picked up a chalk-heart box and waved it in Jimmy's face. "So here's a gross candy that expresses love! See, the little hearts say things like 'You smell nice' and 'I heart ur face,' but they taste like if dehydration was a flavor."

Dipper handed his bags to Jimmy. "Wait—Mabel, that's why you got all these? You've been planning to help the Trickster since February? I thought you were gonna build a chalk-heart house or something."

"Oooh, that's such a good idea. I should do that next year!" To Jimmy, she said, "I was gonna give these to him personally, but if he's still dead, I guess you can add it to his candy sacrifice pile or whatever? And make sure he gets this!" She handed Jimmy a store bought Shimmery Twinkleheart Valentine's card. It read, "I BELIEVE in our friendship! Happy Valentine's Day!" Mabel had scratched out "Valentine's" and written "Summerween".

Choked up, Jimmy said, "Oh—wow. That's the nicest thing anyone's done for us all night. I'm sure the Trickster will really appreciate it when he's not dead anymore."

Dipper was a little more vengeful. Dipper didn't want to do anything for one of the many guys that had tried to kill them last year. But, on the other hand, Mabel had just gone all in on this, and Jimmy seemed nice enough, so... Dipper sighed. Whatever, it was Summerween and this was a trick-or-treater. "Hey," he picked up the candy bowl. "There's really only one bag of good candy in here. The bottom of the bowl is filled with after-dinner mints our great uncle's been stealing from restaurants for the last six months. The Trickster would probably love that, right?"

"Aww—thanks so much, you guys! We'll have the poker group back together in no time!" Jimmy dug past the good candy and started scooping mints into his bag. "Oh—since I'm here, can I ask about our other poker buddy? Do either of you know Mr. What's-His-Face? He disappeared around the time you were visiting the Crawlspace, maybe one of you saw something? Any information would be helpful." Jimmy looked at them with weird, plus-shaped, but very hopeful eyes. "Between the Trickster's death and Whatsis disappearing, the local paranormal community's been hit hard. Especially us guys in their friend group. I'm—I'm not gonna lie," Jimmy heaved a sigh, "It's been a really hard year."

Dipper and Mabel, who were directly and personally at fault for Mr. What's-His-Face's disappearance and knew he was frozen in stasis in Ford's bunker at that very moment, exchanged a look and came to a silent agreement.

"Nope, don't know anything," Mabel said.

"Sorry, buddy," Dipper said.

Like the Summerween Trickster, Mr. What's-His-Face was a weird faceless shapeshifty monster that had tried to kill them. But they felt like that was where the similarities ended.

By the time of the Trickster's death, Mabel and Dipper had realized that his deepest inner longing was to be called good enough to eat. Mr. What's-His-Face's deepest inner longing was to steal innocent people's faces. If Mabel and Dipper helped resurrect the Trickster, he'd probably go back to ensuring everyone displayed sufficient holiday spirit, while hopefully mellowing out about eating people now that he'd been consumed once. On the other hand, if Mabel and Dipper helped free Mr. What's-His-Face, he'd probably just keep stealing faces.

And on top of all that, they could help resurrect the Trickster without admitting they knew the guy who ate him. They couldn't really lead Jimmy to Mr. What's-His-Face without admitting their great uncle was keeping him captive. And that would be a problem for the whole family.

"Oh," Jimmy said. "Okay, that's fine. Thanks for all your help. You know where to reach us if you hear anything."

Mabel shook her head. Dipper nodded. "Yeah, we'll let you know."

Jimmy hopped off the porch, shouted, "Hey Doug, can you help me carry these?" and chucked a couple of bags of chalk-hearts toward the tree line. Dipper and Mabel stared. Nothing emerged to pick the bags up.

They shut the door.

"Man," Dipper said. "We kinda devastated the paranormal poker group last summer, didn't we?"

"Yeah." Mabel sucked in a breath between her teeth. "Wow. Feels... kinda bad."

Dipper offered her the candy bowl. "Drown our feelings in chocolate?"

"Please."

They grabbed a piece of candy each, tore open the wrappers—and frowned. Mabel stomped a foot. "Dang it—Bill!"

"Hm?"

"How many of these wrappers are empty?!"

Bill poked his head out of the living room and said, smugly, "Like candy from a baby!"

####

A knock, and Dipper opened the door. "Wendy! Hey! Good timing—"

"Hey." Wendy lowered her voice. "Quick question—this is super important—is Goldie here?"

"Uh—yeah, why—?"

"Yello?" Bill carefully wove his way out of the living room, already less steady on his feet than when he'd sat down. "I heard my name, who's summoning me?"

Wendy pointed over the twins at Bill and turned to shout into the dark, "Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you! Live and in person... Toga Lady!"

A half dozen teenagers immediately went bananas. Hooting and hollering and cheering and whistling: "To-ga! To-ga! To-ga!"

Bill's entire face lit up. Without missing a beat, he pushed past the baffled twins out onto the porch and spread his arms wide, basking in the cheering. "That's right, keep it coming! Worship me! I'm the greatest!"

"Yes!" Robbie pumped a fist in the air. "The legends were true!" Nate immediately added, "The prophecy! The prophecy!" Tambry snapped photos of Toga Lady's fresh look as fast as her phone could save them, muttering, "Everyone's gonna flip when they find out you're still in town."

Wendy waited, grinning, until her friends' faux hysterics had died down. "Okay—okay, after getting you hyped up, I should probably say that Toga Lady is actually Toga Guy." She glanced questioningly at Bill. "I think?"

"Eh, I'm not picky."

"Anyway this is Goldie, he was stuck in another dimension for thirty years, it's crazy, and now he's like my illegal backup cashier. He actually... doesn't usually wear togas?"

Bill laughed. "If you can't wear a bedsheet on Summerween, when can you?"

Lee said, "Thompson wore a bedsheet to homecoming."

"Hey."

Bill pointed at Thompson. "A man of impeccable fashion! I like it!" Thompson gave him a look of eternal gratitude.

"And Goldie, this is the gang! That's Thompson, he's the guy with the van; Robbie and Tambry, they're like, gender-swapped versions of each other, they even share their hair dye..."

As Wendy did introductions, Mabel whispered to Dipper, "Did you know she was gonna introduce Goldie to everyone?"

"No! This is bad, I told her not to trust him..."

Bill was responding to a question, "No, no, you've gotta guess, I'm making everyone guess!"

The teens considered the question. Robbie offered first, "Punk caveman?"

"Nope!"

Hesitantly, Thompson tried, "Nero fiddling over the burning of Rome?" He winced when Lee laughed.

"I like where your head's at, but no! I can't fiddle."

"The gremlin king from Huge Maze?" Tambry said.

Mabel piped up, "No, but the wig came from a gremlin king costume and I appreciate you for recognizing that!" Tambry nodded in cool approval.

Bill dispensed of Lee, Nate, and Wendy's guesses—Greek Christmas tree, that one guy who keeps painting burning banks, and hair metal Hades—before Robbie loudly cleared his throat to cut in. "Anyway, would love to stay and chat, but we've gotta move if we wanna be in position before sunset. Dipper, Mabel, you ready?"

"Ready to ghost it up!" Mabel said, squeezing around Bill with Dipper onto the porch.

Robbie surveyed their makeup—deathly white skin, ashen grey lips, and dark circles around their eye sockets. "Yeah, that's pretty good. Could use a little color, maybe. Like bloody tears?" He turned toward Tambry.

She said, "I think I've got some red eyeliner."

"'In position'?" Bill asked, giving Dipper and Mabel a questioning look.

Wendy said, "We're helping Robbie film this music video tonight."

"We're the creepy ghost twins!" Mabel announced proudly. "We get to sing the chorus."

Robbie said, "Yeah, the song's about childhood and growing up, but like, with ghosts? Because once you've grown up, your childhood is all dead? It's metal, but introspective. I'm calling the genre 'intrometal.'" He flipped his bangs dramatically. "It's a super deep song. Metaphorical layers."

"Oh yeah?" Bill stared Robbie down. "Sing some of it."

Robbie blinked. "Oh. Yeah, okay uh, I haven't warmed up my voice but, the hook is like—" He pantomimed playing a guitar and whisper-screamed, "'BABY DOLLS! BASKET BALLS! BASKET CASE! HUMAN RACE!' Like that."

Bill nodded slowly, face expressionless. "Ah, yeah, I see. Really deep stuff. Makes you think."

"Thanks." Robbie looked at Dipper and Mabel. "Anyway, if we're gonna get any footage in the graveyard before the jack-o'-melons start burning out, we've gotta move. Let's go, Creepy Ghost Twins."

"Wait, you're going out?" Bill asked Mabel. "Like out-out? Leaving me here? By myself? On Summerween?"

"Wh—yeah, we're only handing out candy for half the night," Mabel said. "I told you that."

"No you didn't!"

"Yes I did!"

"When?"

Mabel thought. "No I didn't," she admitted. "Sorry!"

Wendy punched Bill's arm. "Sorry to steal them. We'll be back in a couple of hours," she said. "Or you could come help—?"

"No!" Dipper and Mabel both shoved Bill back into the house before he could accept. Dipper said, "You've gotta—guard the house." Mabel added, "And hand out candy!"

"Right," Bill said flatly. "Yes. That. Ha."

"See you later!" Mabel said, and then shut the door in his face.

The last thing he heard was Wendy explaining to her friends, "He's on house arrest for, like, academic plagiarism and war crimes or something..." and then they were gone.

Bill's shoulders slumped. Well, now what? He couldn't celebrate a holiday by himself. What was the point of wearing a costume if no one sees you in it. He picked up a piece of candy, discovered it was one of his decoys, and picked up another. 

Someone knocked on the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Bill sighed. He picked up the candy bowl, turned toward the door, and paused. Ah. Right. What was he supposed to do with this impenetrable portal-blocking slab of wood.

Who was left in the house? Stan on the roof, Ford in the basement, Abuelita probably already in bed... were any of them worth harassing to help him answer the door? Maybe Stan, he'd gotten all dressed up, he liked the holiday even if he didn't like Bill—

The trick-or-treater knocked more insistently.

Or. Or.

He could pick up the bowl, peer out the small window in the door, and make direct eye contact with the children outside while he ate candy.

As a piece of mid-tier chocolate melted on his tongue, he saw three trick-or-treaters' faces fall as their faith in a kind, caring universe died. He grinned at them and ate another chocolate.

Oh yeah. He grabbed the rest of his cider from the living room and set up post next to the door. This would keep him entertained the rest of the night.

####

He made seven small children cry.

####

Stan watched from his post on the roof as yet another sobbing kid ran away from the shack. "HA! Gottem! Sucker!" He affectionately patted his boombox. "Creepy ghoulish laughter, you never disappoint! Terrifying moochers since 1989!" He paused the cassette and rewound it a few seconds to replay the best part.

He heard a scraping sound above him, and looked up just in time to see Ford sliding down the roof to join him. "Oh, hey! I didn't think we'd see you again tonight."

"Mabel made me promise to celebrate Summerween a little."

"Good for her!"

Stan had already claimed the sun lounger, so Ford brushed some dust and leaves off the roof's cooler and sat. "So, what are we doing? Scaring trick-or-treaters?"

"Yep. This year I'm taking a more atmospheric approach." He gestured at his boombox, which by now was playing haunting organ music. "Nothing like screaming zombies and rattling chains from nowhere to freak out the kids."

Ford nodded. "Psychological torment. I approve."

"Not quite as good as getting to see the terror in their eyes, but." Stan shrugged. "Bill was hanging out with the kids. I didn't want to put up with him."

"Mm. There's a reason I was spending the holiday in the basement."

"Heh. Well, there's always Halloween."

They were silent for a moment, listening as the cassette moved on from organ music to werewolf howls. Stan asked, "Think we'll be rid of him by then? I know we were hoping to be done with him before the Fourth of July—but since I haven't heard anything lately, I figure you hit a roadblock."

Ford winced. "Guilty as charged." He was still relearning how to keep other people in the loop. Even Stan. "You're right. I have a weapon that can destroy him, but I can't find a fuel source without restarting the portal. I'm hoping Fiddleford will come up with a solution I haven't."

Stan nodded. Ford had told him he was getting Fiddleford involved; even as reluctant as Ford was to admit how little progress he'd made, he wasn't going to tell someone outside the family about Bill without letting Stan know. "Any breakthroughs on his end?"

####

During the credits between episodes of the retired samurai period drama (most recently, the samurai had been asked to use his sword to help cut flowers for a bouquet), Fiddleford leaned over and whispered to Ford, "So I've been a-lookin' at those blueprints you left me."

"And...?"

"And I've constructicated a power adaptor. Just jimmy out the fuel tank, swap it for the adaptor's cord, and you can power that weapon by pluggin' it into the wall! It'll just drain all the power from the town for a few seconds, that's all."

"Fiddleford, that's amazing—"

"Now, hold on. There's bad news," Fiddleford said. "Try as I might, I can't quite get it to draw enough power to activate those energy-destroying features what you'd need to disintegrate Bill. It'll work like a powerful laser, but nothin' else."

Ford sighed. "It's a starting point, I suppose."

"I'll send you home with the adaptor anyway. Never know when you'll need a big laser."

"Very true. Do you have any promising leads on other alternative fuels?"

Fiddleford shook his head. "It's the NowUSeeitNowUDontium or nothing. But I've got a hunch we could synthesize it under lab conditions. I'll letcha know in a few days."

And then the next episode started, and they dropped the conversation.

####

Ford let out a heavy sigh. "He's only had a partial success so far. But I'm hopeful he's on the right track."

"So, if he's working on this weapon, what are you doing?"

"Waiting, mostly. I don't know what else I can do."

Stan frowned. "What—that's it? You've been downstairs all day every day—if you're not figuring out how to destroy him, what are you doing?"

"Passing time somewhere I can be on call if he gets up to something—but I don't have to look at him," Ford said wryly. "And—as long as I'm waiting to hear back from Fiddleford, I've been... picking apart that list of spells Bill gave me. To see if any of them are tricks or traps."

Stan couldn't say he was surprised. That was his workaholic brother. A pamphlet of demon magic was like catnip to him. If anything, Stan was almost glad Ford had that letter to distract him. Over the past year...

Well, Ford was fine on land—when he temporarily had a mystery to solve, an adventure to pursue, an anomaly to study, a distraction to fill his time—but at sea, when his mind was unoccupied, he was listless. He had books he didn't read, field notes he didn't enter into his journal, games he didn't play. He fed himself and exercised and did chores around the ship like a robot programmed to take care of itself, and he stared out at the sea.

Last summer, Ford hadn't seemed happy but he'd seemed alive. Tired and angry, but alive. But after Weirdmageddon, a light in his eyes went out. Stan didn't know if it was the end of summer, or guilt over the memory gun, or the gap between finishing a thirty-year-long quest and discovering the next one. All Stan knew was the light hadn't come back on until the moment Bill Cipher, clad in a new body and a purple cartoon bedsheet, tried to cave Ford's skull in.

Ever since they were children, Ford had had a tendency to develop obsessions. It was somehow simultaneously both what made him most interesting and what made him boring. Depended on the obsession. But these all-consuming interests had always tended to last a few months, at most a year; and he'd never seemed to be without one, much less for nine months. Stan had no idea what carrying a single obsession for three decades might have done to Ford's mind.

Stan was glad something had woken Ford back up, and he worried that losing that focal point again might leave Ford permanently adrift. But another part of him worried that, this time, Ford wouldn't let the object of his obsession go. He tended to collect things related to his obsessions.

But then, he usually tended to like his obsessions. He hadn't seemed bothered to burn the contents of his creepy Bill shrine last summer. Ford wouldn't do anything stupid, Stan told himself. Ford hated Bill. "So? Were any of the spells traps?"

"Not... so far, no." Ford sounded irritated by this.

Stan shrugged. "Makes sense. He's trying to butter us up. If that idiot thinks being nice to us for a week or two is gonna make up for the years of grief he's given us—"

A loud rattle-clattering below made them both start. Stan sat bolt upright. "What the—?"

Ford inched to the edge of the dormer roof, knelt down, and leaned over the edge just far enough to see the window.

Bill's face was pressed to the glass, eye rolled up toward the roofline. He grinned in surprised delight and shouted through the glass, "HEY, STANFORD! What are you doing up here?! I thought you were downstairs!"

"Ugh." Ford turned to grimace at Stan. "Speak of the devil."

Bill pounded on the glass again. "Hey, Sixer! SIXER! Open the window!"

"Why?"

"I wanna talk!"

"No."

"Come ooon, the kids ditched me and I'm bored! There's no one in the house to talk to! The old lady's asleep and Stanley's on the roof, so—" He abruptly fell silent, squinting with deep suspicion at Ford-who-should-be-in-the-basement kneeling on the-roof-where-Stan-should-be, and said, "Wait. Are you Stanley right now? Show me your hand."

Ford did not. "Go away, Bill." He left the edge of the roof for his cooler seat.

"Get back here!" The pounding redoubled. "I don't care which Stan you are! If you don't wanna talk, I can always go wake up Dolores!"

Ford looked at Stan. "Mrs. Ramirez's name is Dolores?" He had gotten used to everyone calling her Abuelita.

Stan stomped on the roof, "Shaddup!"

Bill did not shaddup. "Come ooon!"

Stan sighed in defeat and heaved himself to his feet. "If he keeps that racket up he's gonna break that window, never mind that hex you put on him." When they'd taken out the original Bill-shaped window, Stan had replaced it with the cheapest window he could find. He didn't think it was very durable. "How much trouble can he get in with one open window twenty feet above the ground and both of us watching him?"

Ford Frowned.

"Don't gimme that look. Do you want to pay for a broken window?" Stan flipped through his keys for his key-shaped emergency lock pick, leaned over the edge of the roof, and wedged the pick into the window frame. The latch popped open. Lucky this window was so cheap, that wouldn't have worked on one with deluxe features like "airtight weatherstripping" or "a properly-fitting frame." Stan swung open the window. "Okay, you have our attention. Now what's the fastest way we can get rid of you?"

Bill clumsily climbed out to sit on the windowsill with his legs in the shack, and leaned back so he could see up onto the roof. "Hiya Fo—" He lost his balance, flailed, and yelped as he toppled backwards.

Stan and Ford lunged forward to seize an arm each. Stan snapped, "What are you doing, you maniac?!"

Bill stared up at them both in wide-eyed amazement. "You do like me."

Stan made a noise of disgust, let go, and wiped his hands on his pants like Bill had cooties.

Ford said, "We like you trapped in that body and not free to cause the apocalypse."

"I heard 'we like you'!"

"Shut up." Ford managed to haul Bill back upright. (Touching Bill felt wrong—all soft flesh and skin and the suggestion of bones underneath. Even when looking right at Bill's human body, Ford still expected him to feel like heavy shadows and heatless flames.) From this close, Bill reeked of cider. "Just how much have you had to drink?"

"Not so much I won't remember whatever you say in the morning, so be nice to me!" Bill laughed. He leaned back, this time hanging by one hand off the window frame to precariously maintain his balance, and grinned up at Ford. "So! The least fun person in the house has finally emerged from his lair? And you didn't even come into the house to join in the Summerween festivities! 'All work and no play'..."

Ford had to crouch at the edge of the roof, hovering nearby in case Bill lost his balance again. "I wanted to participate in Summerween, actually. It just so happens that the last person I'd ever spend a holiday with is in the house."

"Listen, Stanford. I know you're holing up in your study for days on end just to hurt me. But let's be honest, you're hurting yourself more! When's the last time you saw the sunlight! Look at how pale you're getting, you look like a vampire."

Stiffly, Ford said, "It's costume makeup. That's my vampire costume." Stan laughed.

"It what." Bill flipped up his eyepatch and squinted blearily at Ford's face.

Wordlessly, Ford bared his teeth to show off his plastic vampire teeth.

"Oh." Somewhat deflated, Bill said, "Nice work, it's convincing."

"Thanks," Ford said grudgingly. Giving in to his curiosity, he gestured toward Bill's (somewhat disheveled) reddish-yellow wig. "What are you."

"Oh!" Bill perked back up. "You've got to see the whole thing. Hold on—" He turned around in the window, ignoring how Ford half reached for him in case he needed steadying, until he got his legs outside to dangle on the roof. "What do you think!"

Ford looked over the brown toga flared out like a cone, the eruption of red hair, the small paper city below, and said, "Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii? Very clever."

Bill's face lit up. "Finally! You're the first person all day to get it!" He smoothed out the skirt proudly, his jerky gestures just a bit more exaggerated than usual. "Do you know how long I've wanted to go to a costume party as Vesuvius? But nobody off Earth would get it! And now that I'm finally here, I can't go to parties and I'm shaped more like a mandrake than a volcano." He flung up his hands, wobbled, and caught himself before Ford had to intervene. "But at least you got it. I knew I could count on you, IQ."

He sounded so sincerely grateful. Ford regretted calling the costume clever. It was, but Bill didn't need the ego boost.

"Oh! By the by—I didn't think you'd emerge before the day was over, so I saved this." Bill fished around in his toga until he retrieved a mini pack of jelly beans. "Here!"

Ford eyed the pack. "Why is it open?"

"Because you only like the weird-shaped jelly beans, so I ate all the normal beans and saved the weird ones in one bag."

"I don't want this. You touched every one of the beans, that would be disgusting even if they weren't coming from you," Ford said. "Anyway, this is a patently transparent attempt to buy your way into my good favor—"

"It sure is, Ford, and if you don't accept it I'll get to be annoying about your ingratitude for weeks! Is that what you want? You know I'll do it. Everyone will be on my side—"

Ford sighed, but snatched the bag from Bill's hand. "Fine. Now drop it."

"That's more like it!" Bill favored Ford with an approving smile. "Anyway, it's just about the only candy left in the house, I ate everything else—hey, have you ever been cross faded on cider and a sugar rush?"

Ford was still trying to decide whether he wanted to engage in this one-sided conversation enough to ask Bill what "cross faded" meant when Bill moved on without him: "It's—not that interesting, actually. 6 out of 10. Anyway, all that's left in the bowl is mints and wrappers. And Mabel even managed to give most of the mints away—hey, she's so nice, did you know she's helping to resurrect the Summerween Trickster?"

She was doing what? "No. Why?"

"She's so nice."

"You just said that."

"What is she so nice for. What's she getting out of it," Bill asked, more to the universe at large than to Ford. "If more humans were half as nice to freaks as she is, your rotten planet wouldn't need people like you and me to save it."

Ford didn't even know where to begin with that. He looked to Stan for help.

Stan was sitting straddling his lounger, elbow on one knee and chin in his hand, watching this exchange like he was watching a weird bug on the wall try to navigate around a picture frame. At Ford's glance, he rolled his eyes and pantomimed sipping from a drink.

He could say that again. Ford cleared his throat. "Bill, maybe you should..."

"Hey," Bill said. "Great talk, we really should catch up more sometime. And pull your weight next time, I always have to do all the talking. But right now, I'm..." He gestured vaguely off to the side. "I'm gonna lie down and try not to throw up. Ciao!" He swayed as he tried to get back in the window, tumbled backward into the shack, and thudded heavily on the floor. "Ow."

Ford gingerly shut the window.

Stan turned up the boombox. "Chatty drunk, isn't he."

"He's chatty sober, too." But in front of the kids? Neither of them saw Bill as a role model, but they still didn't need to be exposed to that kind of behavior. Especially when the responsible adults were outside or asleep... "Did we really leave Bill alone in the house with the kids?"

"W—I—" Stan shrugged defensively. "They were all right! They can take him! They're doing karate or whatever! You didn't see how Mabel flipped him at the mall! It was like David wrestling Goliath."

"David and Goliath didn't wrestle."

"You know what I mean."

Ford supposed he didn't think Bill was any threat to the children. At least, not right now, and not physically. He felt like he'd know if Bill was about to try anything.

He looked at his open bag of gross felt-up jelly beans. Speaking of trying to butter them up... Ford wound up and chucked the bag as hard as he could.

He stared into the dark after it.

A small part of him was beginning to wonder whether this wasn't all just an attempt to get Ford's guard down. The gifts, sure, that was as clear-cut a case of bribery as you could get. Nothing ambiguous there.

But the endless chatter... Back when Ford had called Bill his Muse, this was exactly how he'd wanted Bill to talk to him. Not in the flighty half-distracted way of a friendly businessman catching up on a work project's progress before hurrying on to the next meeting; but just talking for talking's sake, talking for the company.

Getting what he once had longed for made his skin crawl. And he couldn't even tell if Bill was acting.

The boombox let out a ghastly banshee shriek. Ford and Stan both jumped, then laughed awkwardly.

Ford sat on the cooler again. "Is it just me, or... did Bill completely ignore you as soon as he realized I was up here."

"Well. I wasn't gonna mention it. I didn't wanna sound jealous of the attention. But yeah—he's been doing that since he got here. If you're in the room, he tunes everyone else out."

"I thought it was in my head." And he hadn't wanted to sound like he wanted to imagine Bill was favoring him.

"And you do the same thing around him," Stan said, and laughed at Ford's flinch of alarm. "It's—it's fine, I get it. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? You've got some kind of superhero-supervillain nemesis thing."

Ford got the distinct impression that Stan was offering him a convenient excuse for the tunnel vision. He took it. "I suppose that's true." The way his jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed around Bill certainly felt like a "nemesis" reaction.

But if Stan thought Ford was a bit too preoccupied by Bill... well, maybe he was right. Once Ford had gotten over his initial wave of fear, of despair, of outrage at the injustice, at finding Bill was still alive—there was a part of him that was almost relieved. A part of him that had been on guard against nothing for the past year, twisting around looking for an absent threat. Now that it knew where the threat was, that part of him could finally settle down and watch Bill with steady, certain eyes. Having nothing to worry about made him more anxious than having one thing to always worry about.

(Maybe Shermie's kid had been on to something when he suggested Ford might benefit from therapy.)

Knowing Bill was back didn't put the old starlight and awe back in that hole Bill had left in Ford's chest. But dread could fill a hole all the same.

Ford tried to push Bill out of his mind and the conversation. "You think I'm like a superhero?"

"You run around fighting monsters with a space laser. What else would you be?"

"Huh." Well. That made his night.

"Just as long as you don't pull that 'hero spares the villain to show how good he is' shtick."

"Never." Ford laughed ruefully. "I think I left 'good' behind a few felonies back." He'd probably left "good" behind the night he accepted the portal blueprints.

"Couple stragglers," Stan said, nodding out into the dark. It took Ford a moment to spot the costumed kids and remember it was Summerween. "I recognize those costumes, I scared them off an hour ago. What are they doing back?"

Ford squinted at them. "Are those toilet paper rolls?"

"Wh—Hey! What are you little runts— Hey!" Stan leaped to his feet, shaking his fist at the kids below. "Get away from my car! Stop that! I'll have you know that's a classic— No, not the eggs!"

Ford slid out his freeze ray, turned down the power, and offered it to Stan. "Here. At this power and distance, it'll feel like getting pelted with invisible snowballs."

Stan snatched up the weapon. "Eat this, twerps!"

The Summerween night air was filled with the screams of terrified children and the evil laughter of an old man.

####

Wow. It sure sounded like everybody was having fun. Outside. Without him.

Bill was nauseous.

He stared at the spinning ceiling, flat on his back, one leg on a cushion and the rest of him on the floor. 

Bill was nauseous and alone. The loneliness tore at his throat. Even Mabel had ditched him. Of course she did—he'd tried to kill her. He'd barely even remembered he'd tried to kill her until she brought it up. Had he tried to kill her? No, surely not—he liked the kid, he'd always liked her—he'd been faking to force Ford's hand, he never would have gone through with it. He would've teleported her into another room and pretended he'd disintegrated her. She didn't know he hadn't meant it. She was just mad he'd scared her. She couldn't take a joke.

But, Ford talked to him. Ford even liked his costume. It wasn't much, but it would get Bill through the night.

When he saw Kryptos again—when, not if—he was slicing him into a jigsaw puzzle for not taking Bill's call. The nerve of that guy, hanging up on a human without even waiting a few words to see if they had anything interesting to say. 

(What if it hadn't been an accident, he wondered? What if Kryptos had realized it was Bill and still hung up?)

(No. Of course it was an accident.)

He shut his eyes. He was probably too drunk to dream tonight. Well, he could try again tomorrow. His little lucid dreaming guide was currently teaching him to influence the next night's dream by focusing on a topic before sleep. Maybe tomorrow he could dream about the Nightmare Realm.

He missed home.

####

(Congratulations to the approximately 50% of respondents who correctly figured out Bill's costume when I posted the art on Halloween, you're officially smarter than everybody in Gravity Falls except Ford. This is one of those chapters with a whole lot going on so if you enjoyed, I'd love to hear your comments!!)

[arkus-rhapsode]

Manga Recommendation: Tower Dungeon

So looks like Arkus Rhapsode is here to recommend another fantasy manga after the last one. So this time we're going for a bit of a different flavor with the series Tower Dungeon by by Tsutomu Nihei who you may know as the creator of Blame! and Knights of Sidonia.

Now I've known about this series for a bit even though it is relatively new. Having only started last year in Monthly Shonen Sirius. But I remember its announcement from people like Manga Mogul and hearing Makoto Yukimura (Author of the incredible Vinland Saga) recommending it. Now I always loved Sword and sorcery so I was gonna read it eventually, but it just wasn't translated. However, now being able to read the available chapters, I can say this is a very different type of fantasy series.

The premise is very basic: An evil sorcerer has killed a nation's king and kidnapped a Princess and now the royal knights need to ascend the "Dragon Tower" to save her. One battalion has conscripted a young man named Yuva for assisting troops medically has found he has impressive strength. Now Yuva must strengthen himself for the journey ahead as they explore the deadly tower.

Now like all simple premise stories, the real strength is in execution. And unlike the other fantasy series I've talked about before which have bucked the trend of "RPG fantasy" be leaning more into a traditionalist fantasy stories a la Tolkien, this goes for the more realist fantasy of something like Berserk or Dark Souls.

The world of Tower Dungeon may have things like magic and dragons, but it is a dingy, dirty, and lacks any frills. Knights wear heavy armor and people are covered in blood and scars from their adventures.

The mighty Dragon Tower itself? The most iconic thing about this series and the basis of the adventure? Looks like this. This isn't an opulent tower, this is a massive imposing structure where monsters dwell.

However, unlike some grim dark or edgy fantasies, this world isn't indulgent in its darkness. The violence and death are never cool or cheap. They are simply the way the world is. Even when magic exists, the world is still like Medieval Europe and all the "joys" that come from it.

The people as well are similar. These aren't romanticized or polished fantasy archetypes that often come with the idea of a Dungeons and Dragons style adventure, these feel like average joes plucked off the streets having to do a job. If you are say a fan of something like Chainsaw Man, this sort of post modern emphasis on people acting like regular weirdos and not some "anime characters." And I think that is something quite nice that even in a fantastical world, we can see our regular selves in them.

But that's just the story, what about the art? Well if you've noticed this series does have a very minimalist style. Something similar to that of Land of the Lustrous or Chainsaw Man. These almost scratchy and not the most detailed designs that make use of their simplicity to create this very unique atmosphere.

Creature designs themselves are less fantastical and more grody. Feeling as if they come from an off shoot of man rather than some majestic beast. Right down to the cat people.

This series is still new and sadly hasn't been officially translated yet. I've had to use mangadex to read this, so my heart goes out to the translator team. I can understand that this may be a niche that's not for everyone, but its something that feels like such a good sign for fantasy as a genre. A genre that I think has somewhat been stagnated in popular belief with the greater emphasis on Urban Action manga and the reliance on escapist fantasy anime like isekai. To see a more dirty but down to earth take on the premise, I highly recommend it.

[bozepomagaj]

ATINY/MOA/CARATS vs Made in Abyss was the last thing I expected and its hilarious

feel like I need to say something since twitter absolutely loves spreading misinfo and just accusing people of shit, how have you people not LEARNED your lesson yet? Since when is twitter such a trusted source, especially gossip accounts?

And before you braindead stans start calling me a d!ckrider, I promise you I do not care about these men cuz I've got better things to focus on and I'm making this because people are overreacting and it's getting annoying. It's so obvious 90% of you haven't watched the anime (and thats completely fine, I get you) and then ended up listening to someone who made stuff up and overexaggerated. I'm not here to defend the author because I hate him as much as you do and can absolutely recognize the dude is into some weird shit but saying people are ONLY interested in this series because of r@pe and p€dophilia is INSANE. So let me answer some questions as a Made an Abyss reader (not calling myself a fan because you'll catch me DEAD before you see me buying any merch or manga despite my love for the series), kpop fan second.

Does Made In Abyss contain p3d0ph1l1c themes, gore etc.?

There absolutely is because the author is a creep (refering to the nsfw however, most of the times it's very easily skippable. As someone who hates l0l1con cuz it creeps me out, I can tell you that I really didn't have a hard time skipping said scenes even in the manga which is far more explicit than the anime (Prushka asking about Bond's 'stick', Faputa looking into Regs pants, Vueko's weird comments) and sometimes, they're even added as extras (0.5 chapters) which certain sites that contain scans don't even include. I didn't even know about the existence about a few of these chapters BECAUSE they don't include them.

The OVA is a nightmare to watch and was not only unfunny but creepy as fuck especially when they try to boil down such an amazing character like Ozen into 'I like seeing little kids in pain'. Now I have no idea if this was made independently but I don't remember the author making any spin-offs that they could base this on so I can't tell you who wrote it but even then I doubt that the author minded it since the man himself had to include that Faputas behind smells like the 'Sun' so again, not here to defend him cuz he most definitely is a weirdo, no doubt about it.

Is Made in Abyss torture p*rn?

If MiA is torture p*rn then AoT is military propaganda and supports child labor, TPN is also torture p*rn, JJK promotes violence, Berserk excuses r*pe and Evangelion is also p*do bait. See how stupid that sounds? Just because an anime INCLUDES something, does not mean it necessarily supports it. Yes, r*pe is mentioned but it's not even SHOWN, and it's a cruical part of a characters backstory. The torture that happens, happens only once if we exclude Riko's 'experiment' at the very beginning of the manga. And Mitty's transformation can't even be classified as torture cuz it's a.... transformation. Prushka's death is very censored so its not like you can jack off to that anyways. Now the piss thing is something I have noticed but haven't really payed attention it because bffr why the hell would I so idk, maybe the author is trying to tell us something or the guy thinks pee pee poo poo funny🤷‍♀️.

Is there any plot besides the weird stuff?

See now this is the part that gets me most because the reason why a majority of people nowadays got into MiA in the first place is BECAUSE of the amazing plot. The world building, the mystery, the fight scenes, etc. It's amazingly drawn, nicely paced and unique in its own way. But of course, it's manga&anime and what's anime without fanservice? I already explained that in manga, said scenes can be easily skipped and the anime thankfully doesn't include a lot of these. I do have to admit thag I dropped the manga for now since the chapter where they were in a bath cuz it was another one of those 'here we go again' moments where it made me roll my eyes and just close the tab so I don't really know what's been happening recently and if things go weirder.

I'm also gonna tell you honestly that yes, the fandom is filled with sweaty dudebros itching to see these kids half naked and the author is aware of them and pondering to them because he too is one of them. But a large majority is back from when the anime originally came out and are mostly hiding on twitter so it's easy to avoid them and they've been pretty rare ever since people with actual interest in the series have begun watching it. A reason why back in the day I didn't wanna interact with the fandom at ALL was because the moment I tried to have a normal conversation about the plot and what might actually be going on, I instead get bombarded with "UWAAAA😭😭😭" and 'c*nny' comments. I also cannot defend and don't even plan on defending the fact that Faputa is pretty much naked the entire series. I get that she lives in the literal wilderness, but the very least you could do is put a cloth on her y'know. And mind you, I'm talking about the manga. The anime is a LOT more heavily censored, and from what I heard, even MORE censored in Korea.

To sum it up:

Do I think Mingi/Soobin/Woozi are p*dos cuz they watched the anime? Absolutely the fuck not. Considering Mingi is a big CSM fan, I can see why he watched Made in Abyss because I was in that same pipeline. I think some of you are going way too far with these comments, if you wanna call them weird, creepy, wanna unstan them for reading stuff like this go ahead, not gonna stop because in the end no one can but accusing people of crimes isn't funny and never will be. If they were exposed for watching shit like Kodomo no Jikan then that most definitely IS eyebrow raising. Maybe I'm slightly biased due to me only enjoying MiA for the plot so seeing people say the fans are p3d0s when the first time I watched this was when I was freshly 15.... yeah idk abt that one. Whether they liked the weird and questionable scenes, I have zero idea I'm just here to say that you can enjoy said anime without being a weirdo and you shouldn't begin jumping to conclusions and start calling people straight up criminals. If anyone wants to have a productive conversation and ask questions abt said anime cuz I doubt you're gonna go watch an anime over a Twitter drama, go ahead and ask. If you wanna insult me and call me a d!ckrider then go ahead and do that too, who am I to stop you?

[red-steampunk]

Things the five MCs 5 not allowed to do:

MC1-(Summoners) from Shiro & Toji

1- A stunned moment of silence means "My God, what have you done?" Not "please continue."

2- You're not allowed to skip class and meet up with Tetsuox to beat up weaker delinquents who are on both of your Guilds turf.

3- Stop "accidentally" spilling food all over Marduk, just because you think his dragon eating him is funny. Nobody wants to see that. lt's gross and awkward.

4- All though Surtr & Bablon both appreciate the somewhat kind gesture, please stop beating anyone who deliberately calls Bablon by her other "name."

5- Stop flirting with Jugo when he's in the middle of practice or egging on Orochi to rip Jugo's clothes off during practice.

6- Stop waking up Shennong in the middle of the night for breast milk. He's poisonous, you little gremlin.

7- Just like Ryota, you're not allowed to cook anything inside of the kitchen without supervision. Choji still refuses to speak to you after you created that abomination.

8- You're no longer allowed to play unwinnable games or play Mario Kart with Ahura Mazda. You knew what you were doing with that Blue Shell.

9- A lot of the outfits in Tokyo are "very revealing" were asking you nicely to stop referring it to a "pussy out" look.

10- You're no longer allowed to make an Only Fans for extra Guild money. Bribing the staff won't work again.

---

MC2-(Missionaries) from Jacob & Maria

1- Whenever you're gaming with Tsathoggua and the others again, please refrain from saying, "How about I f*ck you're dad and give him a son he'll actually love" to sexist individuals. We got a ton of angry calls from parents across Tokyo from your live streams with Tindalos.

2- Stop telling Temujin that you'd rather get knocked up by Ulaan. Temujin wouldn't leave the property because he was angry looking for you in a fit of rage. Quit giving Maria grey hairs. No one wants him here.

3- Whenever you're having your girls' night, avoid going to places that are usually filled with rude men from now on. We'd appreciate it if you,Hekate,Ellie,Melusine and etc. Would stop looking for fights.

4- Stop calling Hati a simp, he apologized for being manipulated by Nyarl.

5- Stop trying to hook up Nyarl and Zabaniyya. Nyarl doesn't mind, but Zab most certainly does.

6- Stop calling Tezcatlopica, Balor's bottom bitch. I don't care how funny you and Tanetomo think it is.

7- Stop pretending to drown, just so you can either Makara or Gurangatch perform CPR on you. They're both worried about losing you forever. And I know you didn't enjoy it when Fuxi did it that one time instead, maybe that'll teach you a lesson on pretending to drown is bad, m'kay.

8- Stop taking naps on Arsalan, I know he doesn't mind, but I hate having to wash your clothes more than I should because they're covered in oil.

9- Stop letting Ellie drink your blood. I don't care how much you both enjoy it. The angels didn't like seeing that. They think it's gross.

10- I know about you and Azazel search history. Please delete that, and I mean ALL of it. I'll give you three Tickets if you do.

---

MC3-(Berserkers) from Snow.

1- I'd appreciate it if you didn't always clothesline people who either accidentally or deliberately speak inappropriately in front of Echo.

2- Please be careful whenever you're complimenting or flirting with with Cthuga again. You caused him to create a massive forest fire near Chernobog's Moutain, and you're both lucky the authorities haven't found out about it yet, thanks to Claude covering for you.

3- Garmr is not your personal attack dog, and he's not allowed to sleep in your room anymore. His howling is too much, especially at night.

4- No, I won't tell you where the milk from came from. It's a secret.

5- Stop giving Claude dumb ideas for events. Please come to me first for any ideas you have in mind from now.

6- Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And just because you should doesn't mean you can.

7- No ice cream sandwiches inside of the toasters. I don't care if you and Bathym managed to get Ikutoshi to laugh because of the result of it. It wasn't worth it.

8- Asking Belphegor to "clean out your pipes" is right out, when his shift is over. You stop that. Let him rest.

9- Stop calling yourself Tokyo's Hottest Himbo. Echo won't stop repeating it.

10- If you,Bathym, and Cthugha would find somewhere to smoke a "joint," then I'd stop dousing you with water. We don't need you stinking up the place. Maybe that'll teach you that doing drugs is bad, m'kay?

---

MC4- (Tycoons) from Gyumao

1- Even though I appreciate you as my business partner. Please stop complimenting the employees so frequently. They're fishing for your favoritism now.

2- Shino and Choji aren't allowed to get special treatment from me. I know you love them a lot, but I have Barguest and Snow. I need to treat them like that. When you start your own business, then you can spoil them. Other than that, refrain from asking.

3- I appreciate you calling me your dad, but please don't call me "Big Daddy" it's embarrassing, especially in front of our employees.

4- Please stop joining in the fights with the other head Tycoons. Stuff around here is expensive.

5- Licht isn't allowed to paint you naked anymore, thanks to a certain fight breaking out at the museum because everyone wanted to steal that painting of you.

6- We're allowing you to keep all that money you won, but you're not allowed to use anything at the Casino anymore. Your luck at the slot machines and gambling is unnatural, and we don't want to make others think you're cheating.

7- Stop sleeping around with your besties at the same time, you're all loud as hell, Bohemio and Sanzo are rubbing off on you.

8- Unless you actually plan on adopting them, stop referring the 8 Dog Warriors as my grandchildren. I already had Yoshito,Yasuyori, and Mussashi call me gramps. I don't like feeling old.

9- No, we are not doing a Maid Café, Melusine thinks it's degrading. And it doesn't matter what the other maids think because they'll just blindly agree with you.

10- No, you can't suck on my breath for milk just because you're too lazy to go downstairs and get some milk in the fridge. And stop asking Barguest if either my milk or Snow's milk tastes better. It's inappropriate... It's his.

10- Stop calling Korpokkur and Micheal a "lying little abortions" I can't risk having my business partner get canceled for insulting ageless children.

---

MC5- (Outlaws) from Gyobu

1- Even though we know Ryota is completely harmless and means well. Please let us know when he's coming over, Tetsuya still gets upset when you invite him over.

2- I know how much you hate Fuxi and the World Reps in general compared to your siblings. But please stop calling the Cops on our turf to arrest him because he broke into your room. We can handle it ourselves. We're meant to help you.

3- Please don't ever point out how all of the Outlaws have friends outside of the Guild who frequently visit unannounced. Tetsuya clearly didn't appreciate that being pointed out to him.

4- Marchiosias doesn't want Ellie following you to the Gurus Guild because he's very adamant about it, too. So please carefully watch your surroundings. She has a habit of following you. Same with the Summoners Guild.

5- You're not allowed to sneak over at the Warmonger's base to leave multiple cardboard cutouts of Yoshitune surrounding Yoritomo, just so he can suffer from a massive panic attack... again.

6- You deserve getting punched in the face for calling Suzuka a tsundere. She's your friend who asks to be treated with respect, please treat her accordingly.

7- Please stop making passive-aggressive comments to rude customers. We still appreciate you making everyone laugh because of it, but we don't need bad reviews.

8- Tsukuyomi appreciates you being his brother, stop coming up with fancy names for him. They're dumb regardless of what he thinks. You can still call him "Moon Man"

9- Just because Tetsuox calls you boss doesn't mean you should pay him, he already has a job.

10- Stop calling me your dad just because I'm dating Marchiosias. I already have 808 kids plus his child. I'm not sure I'm ready for a trouble magnet like you.

---

All Five from Mr. Mononobe

1- Please calm down and stop being extremely hostile towards Christine, I don't prefer her over you five. Same with Kirito.

2- No, I'm not paying for any of future weddings. You guys have an alarming number of people you're dating. Especially MC2 and MC4.

3- I appreciate you guys treating Furufumi as a seventh sibling, but maybe hang out with one or two at a time. He's still not comfortable hanging out with all of you at once.

4- Even though they deserve it, stop manipulating and gaslighting the Worlds Reps by using any information you have of the Exiles. I don't care if Micheal,Tez or Perun deserve it.

5- I swear, if I get another noise complaint from you're respective neighbors, because you five don't know how to keep your legs closed.

6- No, I won't ever make duplicates of Lil' Salomon. I know you love him. He does appreciate that you guys like him that much.

7- Hearing anyone make a racist comment directed to any of your friends isn't an excuse to jump them at once.

8- I'm not abusing my power to eliminate all of the World Reps at once, I have rules against me for that.

9- Stop trying to get me another romantic partner. Chernobog is great as is, I'm not you five. I have standards.

10- Once you five do finally graduate, then I'll allow you to drink with me. Just don't let anyone else know. Other than that, stop asking asking to go to the bar with me and the other teachers.

[shiroyamayama]

Making a fan manga of Locus

Almost all of Berserk fans would have once had this question; "How this guy became an apostle?" Yes, so have I.

Locus is my favorite villain from Berserk. He is noble, loyal, and one of the strongest apostles. He hasn't lost his spirit as a knight even after becoming an apostle. That's why I love him.

His backstory is still hidden. We don't know how he became an apostle. I decided to depict what I imagined for his past life in manga. This is not an official, but I believe it has a reality as one episode from the world of Berserk.

I started this manga around the end of 2021, then have been posting the panels on Instagram. It has not been finished yet, but you can read all the pages I drew until now in my account; https://www.instagram.com/shiroyama_berserk/

When it is completed, I will post all the pages in tumblr too.

[sgiandubh]

Arguments

Hey Mordor,

Spare the 'shippers are stupid', the Our Lady of the Rings tango (two steps forward, three behind and there we go again), 'S is gay', 'you lie' (we don't: we are vetting everything we go public with to death, whenever possible) and the 'GRO, GRO, GRO' mantra you chant like Hare Krishna, do you have any more solid arguments for your theory to hold?

No critical thinking.

Tunnel vision.

The attention span of a midget porcupine.

Zero curiosity to even check for context and connect the dots.

And last - but not least - seemingly no knowledge of the ways and means of a global, sophisticated world.

You're not even fanning them. Or the books. Or the series. You just hang in here because you need to be collectively right and yet you somehow fail, even with the Narrative making it so easy for you. After all, surface 'facts' are validating. Until they aren't, because this is what they are: surface. Superficial and calibrated on purpose for an undiscerning, docile audience.

Also, it's never really been about Her, right? It's been about Him, all the way. And when They failed to deliver on your fantasy, you went berserk: the replacement Tait story is frustrating AF and I understand the anger - again, you cannot properly worship something that has the appeal of a wet mop.

Yeah. Good morning. It's Saturday and you're still the same old bunch of sad fascists. See, I can play the same idiotic game as you, too. Except I don't do it every single day: it's tedious and if anything, it spells despair. In full letters.

Cheers. I'm off to my hairdresser's. Finally. And sorry for the delay, my lovelies. I unexpectedly fell down a rabbit hole again and didn't want to deliver a half-baked job.

[possiblylando]

Csm Chapter 151 not so early analysis

Late cause of bullshit.

This guy Miri is genuinely so fucking cooked if he grew up with internet his brain would be absolutely fried by twitter he's so fucking gullible I can not believe it this guy.

I'm more interesting in finding out what Whip thinks is going on. Because as far as we've been told and shown Miri is right about their goal here being to stop the death devil from doing whatever shes going to do. But Whip seems to think theres some true reason beyond that, that Miri doesn't get. It's possible their goal is just to bring back chainsaw man for no reason at all- like just to have him there.

Oh wow okay uhmmmmmmm geeeeez look ah wow ahem woo ahem okay maybe uhhh maybe I get barem fans okay just a little bit uhhhhh hmmm moving on

This whole scene was great because Barems moving like a fucking Zombie he totally could've entered his hybrid state here because he still has enough strength left to get up and walk over to Nayuta and fucking choke her out but he chose to stay in human form to prove a point. He's fucking scary as shit here. Barem does this little monolog about being a Makima fanboy but honestly I doubt he's right. Barem is SCARY here imagine being like 8 years old and this motherfucker gets up after being shot a dozen fucking times and he just starts walking towards you like a fucking zombie that is SCARY Nayuta is absolutely intimidated by this dude. Plus as far as I remember there hasn't really been an instance of devil powers sticking around after the devil dies they just seem to reset to 0 each time a devil dies.

The fact they've been keeping Fumiko alive this whole time really does just go to confirm my thoughts that she's going to end up playing an important role in this final saga/arc of part 2.

We finally enter the end game. I've said it in previous posts but we're fucking here now. We have maybe 1-2 arcs left in part 2 before we reach the end of it. I don't know for sure whats going to happen to Denji next chapter but I doubt it'll be good. The transformation is so low key it almost feels like its incomplete. Like the real chainsaw man has yet to appear. It possible due to the fear of chainsaw man around the world spiking due to the fire devil's contracts going off, Denji is about to go berserk as the black chainsaw man because aside from Nayuta he has nothing left. But there is one question I can answer.

He's laughing about the 3 week break see you guys in 2024

[8um8le]

I'm not even a big fnaf fan and yet you got me obsessed with your cyberpunk!au, your design and style is so clean and lively, and the DETAILS <3 I'm in love <3 I kept scrolling since morning through your blog, and I got a thought regarding cyber aus in general: how love between mortals and immortals is a constant race against time and grief. I mean, even with the y/n part of your universe. They will eventually start aging, or just the fragility of human y/n and the threat regarding sun/moon/8bot/eclipse's job. Given that Eclipse and 8bot already lost humans dear to them, how do they cope with the thought of loving another? Rejection, denial? I see they would push y/n away for their safety and to spare themselves pain of losing them. And even if they all fall for human y/n against any logic, I can sense the impending feeling of doom and overprotectiveness. Perhaps nightmares and unwanted memories. What do you think?

Eclipse and 8ot rambles down below <333

8ot and Eclispe had their run with humans, both reacting differently based on their circumstances. Eclipse’s human was a smart successful high status guy, who could spend the rest of his life being by his side. He taught him all the ropes. So with Eclipse’s new human, he would do his best to make sure they live a long healthy life, constantly nagging them about what’s not good for them and what’s good for them :-)))

8ot’s human was a deaf woman who taught them sign language since 8ot didn’t have a voice, they got along well. (Though they had other ways of communicating) Unfortunately she was killed by the raucous gang, which made 8ot go berserk. So they would be too protective of their human :-))

The main characters Sun and Moon are more pure when it comes to their contact with humans, they don’t casually come across them too much. It’s usually just kids from the daycare or when greeting their parents. It would be a whole new experience if a random human treated them as equal, with endless possibilities. 

[ichinoue]

How the Japanese fans themselves interpret 'those Lust arc scenes ™ '

The debate around whether or not Ichigo is referring to Orihime both before and during his Perfect Hollowfication in The Lust has reared its ugly head…yet again. 

This is so bizarre to observe as someone who’s been part of the Japanese speaking Bleach fandom for several years during its run. I have never seen any Japanese fan dispute the fact that the subject was solely Orihime. Nor have I ever seen this particular scene being mentioned in any context other than “Ichigo reacting to Orihime’s voice/cries for help.” 

To put it simply, the context is so obvious that this isn’t even a debate in Japan lol. I know it’s been said a hundred times already, but to reiterate pronouns are very often ignored in Japanese (I omit pronouns like 80% of the time) especially when you’re talking about another person because doing so may even be considered rude as well as sounding totally unnatural. In fact, if Ichigo had used “彼女” (she/her) it would sound like he’s referring to his girlfriend. 

Ichigo doesn’t need to use a pronoun to indicate who he’s talking to because it’s obvious from the context, obvious to everyone except overseas Ichiruki fans it seems. So, I’ve taken the liberty to show everyone how Japanese fans themselves interpret this scene with sources unlike the

“just trust me bro”

essay that spawned this hilarious mess in the first place. Below are some of the Japanese fan reactions to Ichigo’s Hollow transformation during The Lust chapters (or references to it) in relation to Orihime’s presence. 

Blog post from 2009:

Source: 

https://ameblo.jp/rain-chaime/entry-10358790684.html

Ichigo’s heart tries to answer Orihime’s voice …then, there is a change in Ichigo…

“Help… her… I will… help her.” In response to these words, Orihime feels responsible for seeking his help.  Orihime…it can’t be helped, because Ichigo is Orihime’s personal hero lol.

Blog post from 2010:

Source: 

http://wondertime.blog31.fc2.com/blog-entry-1386.html

She can’t do anything, moreover she has no idea what to do, the only thing she can do is to call out Ichigo’s name… “Help me…! Kurosaki-kun!!” Something strange happens to Ichigo who responded to the voice of Orihime …!!! *sweats*

Anon jokes about Orihime’s voice bringing Ichigo back to life in a discussion thread:

Source: 

https://bbs.animanch.com/board/1318379/

Even if Ichigo dies, he’ll probably just power up with Inoue’s voice and come back to life.

Blog post from 2010:

Source: 

https://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/kazusaroom/diary/201005190001/?scid=wi_blg_amp_diary_next

At the very least, the frustration I felt towards Orihime at the time I was reading the magazine has now turned into understanding. “help me! kurosaki-kun!” Ichigo suddenly shows a reaction to Orihime’s voice “She’s calling … she’s calling me.” “Stand up! Stand up!” Ichigo says. “I will protect her!”

Blog post from 2010:

Source: 

http://strawcat.blog12.fc2.com/blog-entry-2441.html

Orihime, who is helpless to do anything but watch as her friends fall, can only cry out Ichigo’s name… Something extraordinary occurs in the body of Ichigo who had returned [to life] in response to that voice, the Ichigo before her eyes is perfectly Hollowfied!!

Blog post from 2010:

Source: 

http://kadukikagayaki.blog129.fc2.com/blog-entry-83.html

Orihime’s desperate sorrow … it finally comes through in her voice as she wants Ichigo to help her… Something strange is happening to Ichigo’s body… this is finally happening isn’t it? Ichigo who was losing consciousness still manages to respond to Orihime’s cries and then he wakes up, I mean, his form goes berserk…

Article about Ichigo’s Hollow transformations:

Source: 

https://11kamone.com/ichigo-horou-18894#i-11

At that time, Ichigo who was revived in response to Orihime’s cries, transformed into a figure that closely resembled the above-mentioned Hollow, White, and then defeated Ulquiorra. 

Article about Ichigo’s Perfect Hollowfication:

Source: 

https://performance-navi01.com/ichigo-perfecthollow/33919/#41350

In order to protect Orihime during the fight against Ulquiorra, which I mentioned earlier, Ichigo becomes perfectly Hollowfied. 

Analysis of Volume 41:

Source: 

https://note.com/zawa_no9cs/n/n24cc091c50cc

Fallen before Ulquiorra who displayed overwhelming power with “Resurreccion - Segunda Etapa,” Ichigo responded to Orihime’s voice which uttered “help me” before becoming perfectly Hollowfied and the battle between the two draws closer towards the end.

Volume 41 impressions:

Source: 

https://ameblo.jp/mangasho5/entry-12424584769.html

But…. Orihime’s cry. Orihime’s tears  It rouses something in Ichigo whose consciousness had already started to fade.

Ichigo was resurrected from the brink of death by the the words of Orihime as she uttered “help me, Kurosaki-kun!”

Volume 41 reviews:

Source: 

https://bookmeter.com/books/565371#js-book-reviews

After being awakened by Orihime’s voice, Ichigo undergoes Hollowfication of his whole body?

Ichigo is ominously awakened by Orihime’s voice.

When Orihime’s cries reach Ichigo, who should have died, Ichigo is revived via a Hollowfication that is different from his previous form.

Ichigo was roused by Orihime’s words before taking on his next form. 

After Orihime’s cry made Ichigo rise up, he becomes a Hollow!?

Every. Single. Discussion… around these chapters in Japan say the same thing,

the remnants of Ichigo’s humanity is reacting to Orihime and Orihime alone.

I could carry on with more and more examples until I break this post with the amount of links I can find. Find me one, just one Japanese article, discussion thread or blog post that indicates the opposite… oh wait, you can’t because they don’t exist.  Just to be clear we have:

All official translations and reliable fan translations (like Cnet)… actually, even the old fan translations which came out before the official ones…all of them include the she/her pronoun because it’s obvious and correct.

The databook refers to Orihime specifically.

Masakazu Morita’s interview

The Japanese fans themselves…

But apparently overseas Ichiruki fans understand the Japanese language better than Japanese people. The audacity lmao. And to think, the one and only source of information for the other side is some rando chick - with a reputation for misinformation and toxic online behaviour - who made a “just trust me bro” essay over a decade ago. Thanks for reading, Rei

[spacemonkeysalsa]

Astarion's scars as a tattoo, yeah or nah?

tl;dr - that's a hard nah from me

I'm pretty heavily tattooed, but I don't have any pop culture tattoos, yet. I am considered a few different pop culture tattoos, including some bg3 related ones. Astarion is my favorite character, and I am definitely not getting his scars, but another pop culture tattoo I have considered at multiple points in the past is the brand of sacrifice from Berserk.

If you're not familiar, it's a popular tattoo among Berserk fans and it functions in universe as a sign that this person has been marked to be consumed in another person's ascension to godhood.

There is a pretty big difference between the brand of sacrifice and Astarion's brand though.

Those baring the brand of sacrifice in Berserk's universe are not slaves. The mark was not put upon them by their slaver. You can argue that they were similarly exploited, but it's not a one to one analogue with chattel slavery at all.

When I thought about getting Astarion's scars as a tattoo I immediately didn't feel right about it, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't recognize why I felt that way. I was not thinking about it deeply.

Later, after discussing it with my sister (who is covered in recognizable pop culture related tats) she managed to put my discomfort into words. Basically, she pointed out that the scars are a slave brand. There is historical significance to these kinds of marks, and it's use in the story of bg3 only emphasizes that.

What I'm describing is a very white woman, talking to another very white woman, like 7 months ago when we'd isolated ourselves and been playing the game nonstop and hadn't peaked in on the fandom yet, because we (correctly) thought that would probably be horrible.

And, I just say that, because I think that if the two of us could pick up on the implications of the scars, everyone else should probably be able to (at a minimum) understand this position when it's spelled out for them. If that's how uncomfortable we felt, in the privacy, basically of just our own minds, playing the game in a vacuum, I can't even imagine what it's like for black fans trying to participate in the fandom.

Ultimately, it is an individual's choice what tattoos they want to get, but the assertion that I've been seeing from people that they shouldn't be judged for it is just not correct. Judging people for their tattoos is totally allowed, actually. The kinds of tattoos that someone gets says a lot about them. I'm positive people judge me for my tattoos all the time, and they are allowed to do that. I have those insect knee-bending wing tattoos, I'm sure someone thinks those are dumb as hell.

So, I've had the chance to talk to a few people who wanted to get Astarion tattoos. I always tell them outright why I don't think they should get the scars and then I try to work with them to come up with something else. I've been prepared for pushback, but I actually haven't gotten any. I think people are more likely to be reasonable when you talk in person.

It's only in internet conversations between strangers that I see real pushback.

On the other side of things, I know the idea of identification with this character, and reclamation feels very powerful, and it's just not effective to try and convince people to have a totally different emotional response to something they experienced. So, I'm not surprised to see people double down in that context.

I wish empathy was enough. But, in case it's not, I'm actually going to try an adjacent angle, as a person who is covered in tattoos.

Let's talk about the most common reasons that people regret their tattoos: 1) They get big, bold, distinctive tattoos before they have a realistic idea of what their adult aesthetic and vibe will actually be (happens a lot to people who get serious and huge tattoos before age 25)

2) They experience a paradigm shift (often social, cultural, political, or artistic) that causes them to feel negatively about the tattoos they got in the past, and they subsequently have a negative relationship with them. Often, these people will start wearing clothing that covers the tattoos before they really confront the fact that they don't like them any more. It's a very hard thing to admit to yourself.

I can see how this particular tattoo doubly qualifies on all accounts.

I'm relieved that I didn't get all the tattoos that I wanted when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Like, fr, thank god I was poor and thought I'd go to hell, because all my tattoo ideas at that time in my life were exactly the kind of stuff I would have regretted later.

So, if you really want the scars, and you're feeling even more convinced than ever to do it because you're annoyed by how passionately some people argue against it and you want to prove that you can do what you want with your body, and that the meaning is immutable to you and can't possible change, keep in mind that regretting tattoos is very common, changing your mind is very common, and growing the hell up is inevitable.

Even the most innocuous tattoos with absolutely no broader implications might make you feel negatively about your own body one day, and no one wants that. That definitely wouldn't be the legacy that you want to attach to this tattoo.

There's a big difference between trying to control someone's behavior and trying to just be real with them about the increased likelihood that they will be unhappy with the tattoo at some point down the line. Like maybe after they make some black friends.

It might sound like I'm being flippant, but I am actually dead serious. With how many people are getting that tattoo right now, it's basically inevitable that some of them will one day learn or experience enough to completely change their opinion on this exact debate and then feel all kinds of gross about the tattoo.

And, to reiterate, I don't think that's as good an argument as just not doing it because you listened to black fans about how it made them feel and empathized. That should be enough.

[sweatytyrantobservation]

when p2 berserk horses

The moment you've all been waiting for...

Part two of berserk horses that caught my eye!

Wyald.

I don't like wyald, but I like his horse. It looks just as crazy as him and I think the fur on the tack is a cool, small but distinctive detail.

Black Ram Iron Lance Knights

With the most ridiculously long winded name I've ever seen, I love these guys. I like the horns on their heads.

Andon, general of the blue whale knights.

Again, not a fan of this guy but Jesus christ this animal is an absolute unit. I'm really a huge fan of its helmet.

The green knight

Yeah I can't lie I was confused as hell at first I thought this was locus but I like this guys armour. Kinda smooth, sleek. Pretty.

Locus

Gorgeous. Like hello? Definitely one of my favourite designs. I can really appreciate the details

The Headless horseman?

I've heard this dude is a combo of the green knight and some demon? Anyway, spiky horse. Reminds me of a holly Bush. Which is cool because I like Holly bushes.

The Holy purple rhino knights

I had these guys super confused with the blue whale knights for ages because the design of horse armour is really similar. Still, neat. I like how the armour is made to match the name of the army, rhino knights? Rhino armour.

Judeau!

Our favourite boy. I love his horse. Simple, smooth, cute. I bet he takes good care of it. Sorry this was the best photo of it I could manage.

Tudor knights

Yeah I'm not sure much on these guys yet but I like the boar snouts on the cavalry. Again a neat detail

And finally!!..

Isma and isidro

I know the unicorns aren't their horses bur they're cute, So damn cute I love how they interact with the both isma and isidro.

[that-one-kiddo-in-the-back]

Same Star Wars fan who adores The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi here, I massively disagree with your take on Luke in the sequels. I don't believe he was ruined at all, in fact, I fell like it was a natural progression of his character, that behind the legend he is still a flawed human capable of failure. To loosly quote Linkara here when Luke considered striking down Ben Solo: https://youtu.be/9NBhHh_9XXo?t=717

"I get it; (most people) see it as Luke thinking about killing this kid, that his character was ruined ready to murder his nephew when he had tried to redeem Vader just for sensing a little darkness. Hear me out: One: he didn't just sense some darkness, he sensed that he had already been turned. Kylo had already betrayed him at that point and was just looking for an excuse to put it out in the open. Two: He had a moment of hesitation where he turned on his lightsaber and then immediately, IMMEDIATLY, regretted it and felt ashamed. he did nothing, he saw darkness and instinctively wanted to attack. Hell it's a lesson he's still struggling with because he was horrified when Rey looked into darkness and didn't pull away from it. And finally: Yeah he redeemed his father...after getting so pissed off that he sliced off his dad's robot hand, egged on by the Emperor who wanted him to take the final blow just for the idea that he would corrupt Leia and remember: All throughout Return Of The Jedi everyone else was telling him he had to fight had to kill Vader and he resisted all of them and yet he went friggin' berserk on Vader during that scene. The idea that Luke is incapable of that kind of weakness ignores, you know, his moments of weakness and that's just a really obvious example. Recall that even just the thought of his friends in danger got him to abandon his training and race off to cloud city, an act that almost got him killed. Hell, his darkest fear in Empire Strikes Back is becoming Vader, becoming a monster and of course he was going to overreact and run away from that when he feared what he had done. Luke is not perfect, he makes mistakes and sees in himself his own failure and a cycle of pain the Jedi started and his family has perpetuated. Even seeing it in himself as if the mass murders Kylo Ren committed could equal his one moment of weakness. Some people can't accept that because Luke is a symbol of hope for them, of light conquering darkness. I get that but here is the alternative thing you should take away: Not everyone just learns their lesson and then never makes that mistake again. Believe it or not, you're the audience, you're Rey seeing this figure of legend and realizing that they're not some perfect pillar of always being right, always doing the right thing, but Luke is a person who's just as fallible as any of us. I frankly think it's much more inspiring when someone keeps getting back up after failing over and over than it is to see a guy make a mistake and then be super awesome perfect for the rest of their lives. I feel like people only paid attention to Kylo's perspective in this thing, this vengeful evil Luke ready to slay his nephew and forget Luke's perspective on it, his shame and guilt over just the thought of it. You're absolutely right that Luke would not kill his nephew but the thought that he might frightened him just like it had frightened anyone of good conscience. Rey believes that she can sense conflict in Kylo, that they can turn him back to the light and shift the tide in the war. She wants to go to him thinking that he'll turn if she goes. The thing is: Rey believes in the legend of the Jedi and of Luke Skywalker. She thinks history is repeating itself and that Ben solo can be saved like Darth Vader was at the end. She's trying to play act a story she heard, and that is her big character flaw. Look back at The Force Awakens and you can tell her reverence at the events of the Original trilogy, the excitement of rebellions, of the stories about the Jedi, putting on the fighter helmet and imagining herself somewhere else. She doesn't understand that this wasn't a story, it was real people with very specific circumstances and events that got them to where they were. Kylo Ren is not Darth Vader and she is not Luke Skywalker."

So yeah, that is basically Linkara's take on the character of Luke which I just so happen to share. If you disagree, that's fine. More power to you. Each to their own.

Cool, I personally don't agree. I don't think that Luke is this perfect character that can do no wrong.

But to have the mistakes of trying to kill his nephew for already turning to the darkside just made no sense. I'll take that he was acting purely off of his own anger, but it still makes him wanting to bring Darth Vader back from the darkside when everyone else was telling him to "give up" was face palming.

[ludinusdaleth]

have you read that article posted yesterday that talked about changes to the m9 adaptation? if it's not too discoursey to ask what are your thoughts?

im happy for there to be changes as much as im pleased theyre trying to stick to the heart of the m9. the point of a good adaptation is keeping the core themes of a story but also asking how it can evolve in hindsight and, in cr's case, how it can better fit as a puzzle piece in an entire narrative. i dont really see too much disc horse about it currently but from what i have, it's funny to see a fandom that despised the campaign for not focusing on politics enough now panic when travis said there were whiteboards of geopolitics for the animated series. a fandom that hated once how meandering the early story was now crying it might be more fixed. proof that time changes perception, and/or im afraid many fellow c2 fans are pretty defined by hypocritical views about the series.

personally i really love the concept of more political lore - nothing made me more excited than matt teasing we'd get more cerberus assembly. especially because c2 & c3, more than c1, need background context & clarity in any adaptation not centered on players but narrative. the idea that animated c2 will commit to showing its lore hand early and show us things we havent yet seen from essek & the beacon, to no doubt yasha's wanderings, is exactly what it should be doing. c2 always felt like a massive scope contained to one party, which works in dnd (it is in fact one of my favorite things about c2), but not any other medium.

i also think that theres a decent chance they didnt change all that much, not significantly, and are just saying that to prepare m9 fans for any change at all, considering they specifically are the ones who went so berserk about the c2 ending that folk cite it years later.

[beevean]

So between Alucard with Greta and Richter with Annette it seems like the moral of the story is that the best way to get over your trauma is to hook up with a person who mocks you for it!

Greta joked about Alucard's rape, while Annette insulted Richter's inability to use magic knowing it was tied to the trauma of seeing his mother getting murdered when he was a kid!

It's incredible how the show has no accidentally toxic relationship that isn't explicitly presented as being cute or romantic outside of Striga and Morana, who are barely characters, and maybe Olrox and Myzrak, though the former's behavior is a bit questionable at points

These guys are fans of Berserk, they've read the waterfall scene with Guts and Casca, yet they write ships like these. Never let them even a mile within Casca's general vicinity

She counts too! Don't ignore her just because she was the one who caused the trauma in the first place :)

But yeah, there is not a single relationship in both shows that is fully healthy and believable except for Striga and Morana, and I honestly wonder how come they can be genuinely loving, affectionate and respectful towards each other while no one else can. Best I can think of, the fact that they're both women means they couldn't be forced into the mold of "sassy woman insults stupid man".

"but beev this is an edgy show about vampires and assholes why do you want relationships to be wholesome i thought you were a freak who loved problematic shit" because it's what the show wants me to believe! When Sypha calls Trevor a deformed pet bear, it's meant to be cute! When Alucard uses dolls to hurl vile insults at both Trevor and Sypha, it's meant to be funny! When Greta responds to Alucard's very real, very painful recent memories of being assaulted in his own bed, she makes a tasteless joke about her fucking a married man, and he laughs at it because it's meant to be quirky! When Annette is a giant piece of shit hitting Richter's insecurities where it hurts, no one in-universe questions her, because god forbid Annette's real flaws are presented as such - it's fine, Richter still loves her enough to use her memory to unlock his magic, the very thing she mocked in the first place! Lisa literally says that her husband is worse than Satan because he's real and she warns the bishop to not kill her because she knew Dracula would snap and retailate in revenge, and then it's all forgotten in the name of a cutesy ending! I think I've eviscerated the absolute dogshittery that is Lenector in S4 to last me a lifetime!

You want your characters to be assholes and monsters? Commit! Don't shy away from how miserable all of these people should be for the sake of some half-assed ship tease!

[its-monster-mash]

Alright so, there’s been a sleep between me and the House of Wax rewatch, so I’m going to TRY to organize my feelings by Chronological order of the movie. This is going to get long, so there will be a cut so I don’t take up too much dash-space for people who want to scroll past.

Basics of it: Bo Sinclair apologism and Let Vincent Have Agency over his own actions. Also people are DICKS to rural people for no reason, like seriously FUCK Wade. Wade Deserved It.

So RIGHT off the bat, with Bo’s first appearance in the woods with his truck—Bo did NOTHING wrong here. I live in a very rural area(I grew up in the middle of the woods, but now I live a ten minute walk from where I used to—there are so many cows). Where I’m from, if the landowner catches you in his woods you’re as likely to get SHOT AT as not. Showing up in a truck and staring at you is kind of a universal POLITE, gun free, warning—most people WILL scramble when someone shows up if they’re trespassing in the woods.

Now, what I think Bo was doing here was taking a headcount—deciding whether or not he wanted to deal with them, and I actually think he decided AGAINST killing them.

Despite the fact that they treated him aggressively and fucked up his truck, I feel like it cannot be stressed enough that BO DID GET THE FAN BELT.

Again, as a person from the middle of nowhere, it made ME fucking furious the way Wade came into town and just started breaking into places and LITERALLY breaking things. And, without prior knowledge that the church was full of wax victims, Wade was so impatient that he just couldn’t wait for Bo to FINISH UP AT THE FUNERAL, and decided to just let himself into Bo’s shop and take a fanbelt—leaving a “This is probably enough” amount of money. The entire time ripping on rural people and how they live(not to mention how he treated LESTER. Lester 100% acted like a normal guy around here. 10/10 girls I knew growing up would have LOVED to see his knife. That was an EXTREMELY normal interaction where I’m from.).

ANYWAY BO.

Bo straight up told them they could wait for him while he went ALONE to his house to get the part(also Wade questioning that a MECHANIC has some of his stock at home?? Fuck you man), and it was Wade that insisted on going along.

I do not think Bo intended for Vincent to go Snip Snip through the floorboards. (On top of that, Wade made the DUMBEST little noises after getting sliced—Bo getting changed upstairs probably 1000% thought “Jesus Christ the fucker is blowing up my goddamn bathroom”. He may not have even known yet that Vincent got him; depending on whether or not he noticed the signs of struggle in the already kind of messy house.

(On THAT note, I got pissed as hell the way Wade was judging the Sinclair Home—like bitch you are the reason moms in the early 2000s went berserk about the house needing to be spotless when guests come.)

Bo was genuinely surprised when Carly LOCKED HIM OUT OF HIS OWN TRUCK. I feel like THAT was the point where Bo decided “Fuck it.”

I think that, up until then, Bo WAS going to fix up their car and get them on their way, because he KNEW they had a whole lot of friends who were coming back for them—Bo may not be the brightest, but I feel like he was smart enough to know that that could have got them caught or hurt.

My best friend and I joked that we would have survived our trip to Ambrose because we simply would not have been assholes. (And we would been HUGE nerds in the Wax Museum, and well, NOT took a lighter to the pieces??? Vincent probably would NOT have shanked us. Tbh we would not have gone into the Sinclair home because when Bo said “You can wait here if you want” we would have simply said “Thank you.”. Well, we wouldn’t have broken into the Museum AT ALL, but given who we are we may have ASKED Bo if we could see it.)

Now, I’m not saying Bo ISN’T a bad guy, like, he very much definitely DID lock Carly in a basement and glue her mouth shut, but I didn’t really see a whole lot of like?? Gratuitous Sadism?? Is there more in a novelization or something?? Like, he threatened her to keep her quiet—but since he and his twin are literally serial killers I think that’s pretty standard?

The fact that Carly was able to so EASILY dismantle the chair makes me kind of feel like it wasn’t really used much? I mean, Bo is a mechanic, you’d think if that were a thing he made a habit of it would be in better repair. I didn’t really get the feeling that this was like, an average Tuesday Night for Bo or anything.

(On that note, I would have been the worst victim because the MINUTE he turned the music on I would have been like “Oh shit dude I like your taste” and he would just “???” Of course, I may have met a completely DIFFERENT fate because I simply would not have locked him out of his truck. There would have been no chase.)

AND VINCENT.

I don’t get where the “Uwu Soft Boy” “Bo’s Victim” thing comes from unless people were just taking Carly’s late-movie assumptions at face value??

Like, Vincent DID very much get in a truck and go into the woods just to hunt Blake and Paige. Like, he had no reason to do that, and Bo was straight up mad about it until he settled down and told Vincent he did good and they’d fit the set. Like, Bo is the one who imprisoned Carly, but Vincent VERY MUCH WAS THE ONE WHO DID THE KILLINGS. Bo did not tell him to do any of that. It kind of makes me mad because it feels like Vincent’s agency is downplayed a lot in the fandom and that it’s just because of Bo snapping on him One(1) Time, and Carly’s assumption in the final chase.

And as far as Bo snapping on him goes!!

Bo had AN ARROW IN HIS CHEST AT THE TIME(Also Bo, I love you, but FUCK WHY DID YOU PULL THE FINS OF THE ARROW THROUGH YOUR ARM??? He should have just?? Cut the arrowhead off and pulled the SMOOTH part through?? This man). I think most people are prone to snapping when they’re in severe pain(and I think the way Vincent IMMEDIATELY rushed in to survey Bo’s wounds shows a lot about how they DO care about each other, like very clearly Vincent is not AFRIAD of Bo—considering even after he snapped Vincent was just like “Whatever, go ahead and bleed, I’m going back to fixing up my mask.”). The sibling of mine I actually KNOW is significantly younger than me, so we didn’t have any kind of antagonism with each other—largely because I was a Parentified Sibling—but every close in age pair of siblings I know can be pretty mean to each other, but always in an “ONLY I CAN PICK ON MY SIBLING” kind of way. Bo calling Vincent a “Freak” and then IMMEDIATELY taking on a softer voice and telling him how great his art is had HUGE “I’m sorry, you can hit me back, don’t tell Mom.” Energy. I really don’t think Bo abuses Vincent.

I mean, he said “You’re not supposed to go anywhere WITHOUT ME”, which implies that they DO go places together; and given how easily Vincent killed everyone he killed in the movie, it makes a LOT of sense that Bo wouldn’t want him going out alone. Especially if(and this is my own speculation) Bo is used to always being around to “Protect” Vincent from people who would make fun of him.

>Inserting this here because I forgot to mention it: I genuinely think all the killing started while Trudy was still alive, because Bo talks about how he and Vincent can “Finish what she started”. Additionally, in the beginning of the movie, Lester gives that little speech about how people can “get used to a lot”. That makes me feel like the brothers were probably RAISED to do the things that they do(supported by the fact that the fucked up machinery Vincent puts his victims in looks OLD, so it’s not unlikely that Trudy used it first). That doesn’t absolve Bo and Vincent, of course, but it does make them ALSO victims.

Moving on to Carly’s speculation at the end—she CLEARLY pissed Vincent off. I mean, she just BEAT HIS BROTHER TO DEATH and then called BO a freak and suggested that BO was behind everything. Not only did she kill HIS twin(and she and Nick would know better than anyone how much pain Vincent must have been feeling in that moment) but she called BO a Freak too. Given the amount of abuse Vincent watched his parents hurl at Bo, that was probably a rehashing of how he felt when his parents would bind and beat Bo and yell horrible things at him. (Also like, FUCK, the fact that Bo’s high chair STILL has fucking blood on it??? Like their father was a DOCTOR, and he just made Bo sit and eat with his Rotting Old Blood right there??? FUCK.)

And finally, Lester sitting on the back of his truck at the end of the movie, Jonesy sitting with him—he was probably waiting around for some sign of what happened to his brothers, and THAT breaks my goddamn heart.

But like, bottom line, I don’t think Bo was the “Evil Twin” much in the same way that Nick wasn’t actually that bad of a guy. The Sinclairs are obviously the result of a very fucked up upbringing, but aside from the whole wax thing and the locking Carly in the basement, Bo actually feels like a pretty normal dude??? By slasher standards??? I definitely don’t get any kind of a “Bo is the mastermind” vibes from the movie—it feels very much more like this is just the life that’s been NORMAL to Bo and Vincent for so long.

Yeah, they should have just left Ambrose and NOT kept killing, but Bo is CLEARLY still trying to get his mother’s love, and I don’t think Vincent even WANTS to stop. I don’t think Bo would have ever left Vincent even if HE wanted to stop.