#i mean what else is tumblr for right

[ampblamp]

AU: Here's How Billford Can Still Win

(part 1: make that triangle miserable)

tl;dr: i want bill to have his ability to live in denial about what he did shattered by several important figures from his past BEFORE he can enact weirdmageddon. this way the yaoi can be messy and toxic (at first) but NOT doomed. it's self indulgent for sure but i'm doin my best to keep it IC as i can 🫡

this first post is just me figuring out how i think things would have to go down on bill's end for billford to have any chance of working out. take my hand. come away with me to my autism world

i'm still figuring out all the details of what would have to change to like. weaken bill's mental defenses enough because he HAS been able to shove his guilt down for so long. i do think everything with ford would be one of the key factors cause he had never connected so much with any of his prior human partners and obviously things souring fucked him up enough to have a turbo breakdown. (i know it's also because of the amount of times the plan has failed but i think he's also feeling rejected by so many humans not liking him lolll)

i think his breakdown after getting wasted at o'sadley's would happen like in canon, save for its repercussions. once bill starts thinking about his mom and everyone else from euclydia around when he's about to be arrested, maybe it would open the door for thoughts of them to keep slipping through his defenses. and suddenly thinking about weirdmageddon and hearing himself and other people talking about it could have a chance of triggering him.

i know personally that trauma can jump in and completely drag you back in time regardless of any logic, and i think him having that kind of episode sooner might be the key to getting him to face that he doesn't want to keep repeating what he did to euclydia because it's never going to be enough to convince the small, small voice in his head saying 'stop'.

because that's just the thing. bill has forced himself down a path of destruction to Prove to himself that its actually for the best to tear down "miserable reality" and replace it with his own vision. his drive and impatience to get weirdmageddon going is BECAUSE he wants to permanently cement that narrative in his mind with the ultimate "proof". because if the narrative fails, not only will he not be able to mentally cope (without help) he'll completely fail the henchmaniacs, who he promised a new home, and look vulnerable and weak, which he's TRAINED them to view as what should be destroyed.

i think the o'sadley breakdown and my proposed worsened repercussions of it would destabilize him, but it wouldn't be enough to stop him. what would push bill over the edge in this hypothetical would be several powerful entities from bill's past like the axolotl, the oracle, and time baby working together to somehow target his mental weak point. cause remember, time baby canonically KNOWS bill's weak point.

also like. To Me. the axolotl and the oracle are people bill was close to and has seen himself in at one point* but they matured and he didn't, and that's why he's SO hostile towards them.

*the oracle being an ex-henchmaniac is canon but i say this about the axolotl because of xolotl. look him up, it'll freak your bean.

alsooooo... ford not being as immature and vengeful as bill hoped he was is probably why bill broke down so hard - because it reminded him of the axolotl and the oracle. all the people who he actually connected with on a deeper level have left because of the same reason. but bill was always too terrified to confront everything he's done, which would be necessary to follow them.

so ends part 1... next, i think i'm gonna try to figure out how ford and bill would meet again (haha). ford is sucked into the portal right after (maybe even during?) the whole o'sadley's deal iirc sooo... fun point in the timeline to play with!

also hopin to draw stuff for this AU in the future :]c calling upon the power of my newly aquired ADHD meds lmao

[ruvviks]

// oc deep dive.

tagged by; @aztarion and @devilbrakers, thank you so much!!

tagging; @mojaves, @deadrlngers, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @adelaidedrubman and YOU!

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

Nathan has a lot of fears stemming from his paranoia. Tangible ones such as getting captured or killed by MOBIUS, his friends walking away from him, or someone following him home; as well as more unrealistic ones, such as somehow ending up back in STEM, or getting stuck in a time loop, or a giant sinkhole all the way to the core of the earth opening up right at his feet.

It also happens often enough that certain actions don’t necessarily scare him, but make him uncomfortable or highly on edge (often with good reason); think of someone locking the door of the room he’s in– especially when it’s just them two– or getting too close without warning. He often fears people he gets too close to will end up treating him like the Administrator did, which is why it takes a while for him to let Sebastian get any closer physically, despite warming up to him relatively fast.

A more uncommon fear he has is waking up one morning and having lost one of his senses or his ability to speak. Aside from the mental erosion that had become a growing issue among Union citizens, MOBIUS observed a similar kind of process in its agents who regularly jumped in and out of STEM for general maintenance and the like– presumably caused by the constant changes in brain activity, which more than often led to exactly what Nathan’s fear mentioned above describes. While he was among the agents who worked both in and outside of STEM on the Union environment, he was lucky enough to never suffer the consequences.

Lastly, he is deadly afraid of Anima. Despite not having shown any other symptom of succumbing to the STEM domination process, Nathan would have started seeing her around sometime before Lily vanished– presumably got her attention after some of his escapades in the secret labs in the Marrow– and he has not been able to sleep soundly in STEM ever since. While his fear of her mostly acts up when he’s in a STEM environment, it definitely translates over to the real world as well; during bad mental health episodes he has auditory hallucinations of her, and she makes regular appearances in his nightmares too.

Do they have any pet peeves?

When people are too passive. Nathan can’t stand it when he’s expected to initiate everything, from conversations to taking action, both in a work context (scheduling meetings, deploying new code) as well as personal context (scheduling to hang out, doing household chores). He also doesn’t like having to constantly ask people to do what they’re supposed to do– though this irritation more than often extends a little too far, to things he is expecting of people but never told them about.

Loud and unexpected noises, especially when done on purpose. Fireworks would be a great example of this, and they piss Nathan off no end. He gets snippy when people raise their voice at him for no reason, or when they keep banging their fist on a surface to get others’ attention.

Getting cut off in traffic. Nathan’s road rage is easily awakened and he can get a little drastic with it. His reflexes are fast enough to brake on time to avoid ending up in someone’s trunk, but will in that same breath speed right back up to crash into them on purpose as revenge for pissing him off.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

A large ring binder full of old code snippets, notes from various projects he worked on back at MOBIUS, and all his research ranging from neuroscience all the way to electrical engineering. Nathan is a little old-school in that regard– he’d much rather have all his research physically with him than save it all to some online storage platform and risk losing it like that.

A jigsaw puzzle, made entirely out of different pieces that he’s collected over the years (stolen from others’ puzzles, found in various locations, stolen directly from the store, etc). The full piece would total up to nearly 2000 pieces, though it is still missing a large chunk in the center; the result is an abstract piece containing mostly darker colors, though with various bursts of color scattered around like flowers in a field. Nathan isn’t the artistic type, but the project keeps him busy and he considers it a type of self-expression.

The knife he killed his parents with when he was sixteen years old. He’s not entirely sure why he kept it all those years– perhaps to remind himself what got him to where he is now, or because it’s the only thing he still has from that time of his life. Either way, it’s kept safe in the top drawer of his nightstand, easy enough to reach in case someone breaks into his apartment.

What do they notice first in a person?

First: State of mind, overall mood. How approachable do they look; can he afford to lower his guard or does he need to tread with caution, can he get close without worrying about a knife to the stomach or should he keep his distance? Nathan rarely shows immediate interest in someone’s overall personality, he would rather want to know which of their emotions he’s gonna have to deal with during their interaction(s).

Second: Body language. Ties in with the first thing mentioned– cautiously watching for threats, waiting to see if they make a move to touch (or harm) him so he can step out of their range. But it also extends a little further; Nathan tends to mimic others’ body language in conversation to make himself appear more approachable. If someone gestures a lot, he will do the same.

Third: Their smile, if relevant. Smiling is an eye-catching action to him, since he’s not one to quickly do so himself. It’s attractive to him; if someone smiles at him, you’ll be able to catch him staring.

Fourth: Scars, and other (skin) details. Nathan isn’t one to ask about them, of course– but they’ll catch his attention anyway, for a brief moment, since some of them already tell a story on their own even without words.

Fifth: Nervous tics, if relevant. By this point he’s been in conversation long enough to pick up on the little details– a slight thrill or shakiness to their voice, a thumb running over the side of their index finger, a nose twitch. In some cases it eases his mind, knowing the other person isn’t confident in their conversation either; in other cases it sets off alarms in his mind, and makes him wonder if there’s more going on than what they’re showing or telling him.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Physically: 7. While he doesn’t quite look like it, Nathan can take a hit or two. Most of his injuries happen in STEM– though with the way the technology works, the pain is very much real, and in some cases the scars are lasting even in the real world despite the damage having been sustained in STEM. To an extent, Nathan even enjoys the pain; it’s grounding for him, and keeps him from dissociating. When it gets too much to handle he simply drinks it away.

Mentally: 10. Nathan’s life has been a constant downward spiral; sent to a youth detention center after being wrongfully accused of killing his younger sister, and he was bullied relentlessly there, which continued until long after his release both at school and at home. At MOBIUS, he was required to work shifts in their HQ as well as in the Marrow, in the Union STEM environment– he was required to be mentally strong, or he would have already started suffering from mental erosion by long-term STEM exposure after his first few trips in. It takes a lot to break him (or so he likes to believe).

Emotionally: 4. Once you get past all the barriers, Nathan is pretty sensitive. He doesn’t deal well with rejection or misunderstanding, and is prone to assuming things are all his fault the second something goes wrong. It’s easy to upset him, though he won’t easily show; but the damage often takes a while to repair.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Fight, more than often; though it may appear as flight at first, since Nathan’s favored combat approach is stealth and he will always find cover before doing anything rash. In certain cases, however, he would be more likely to freeze; especially anything related to Anima or an enemy type like her, where fighting is out of the question, and he knows that a single wrong move can mean his demise.

It translates to non-combat situations too– often willing to talk to people but his initial response is to get defensive and close himself off, and if not given a moment to regain himself it can lead to either fighting or freezing; biting back with similar ferocity or shutting down altogether, unable to pick up his rational train of thought in the heat of the moment.

It really depends on the type of confrontation, though; taking his own state of mind and who else is involved into consideration. He’s known to fawn when a situation starts feeling a little too familiar– generally surrounding the abuse he suffered from partially his parents, but mostly the Administrator.

What animal represents them best?

Wolf; bordering on dog motif, but cautiously so, requiring infinite patience and understanding to win his trust. Nathan is loyal and guarding to those he cares about, but he values his freedom– his choices and decisions are his and his alone, and anyone who tries to take that away from him will suffer the necessary consequences.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

Curious, above anything else. Distant, reserved; surprisingly well-spoken, almost technical in his interactions with others as if the whole conversation is pre-programmed in his mind. Nathan isn’t necessarily cold towards others, but people would also not be quick to describe him as kind; though there is a certain warmth to the way he speaks and looks at people, despite the fact he very rarely smiles and isn’t one to quickly compliment someone else.

Appearance-wise, people tend to notice the white strands in his black hair first. They’re clustered at the front of his head, and match with the white hairs in his left eyebrow and the white eyelashes in the outer corner of his left eye. Nathan has very pale and rough skin, patchy but dark facial hair covering up most of his acne (/scarring); and part of the skin around his left eyebrow is lacking pigment, though it’s a little hard to see. He has very pale and bright blue eyes, which can be a little unnerving when staring at them for too long. Many people cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long.

Do they have any hobbies?

Nathan’s career is directly intertwined with his hobbies, and he enjoys working on code even long after cutting ties with MOBIUS. Software development, application optimization– his laptop runs on an operating system that he coded entirely himself, and whenever he has some time to spare he can be found tweaking and optimizing it and adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, he’s a gamer. Shooters, roguelikes, survival horror– he does not play all too often as his schedule often doesn’t allow for it, but he generally doesn’t have a hard time playing on higher difficulties and enjoys the challenge. Nathan has tried his hand at game design and development too, but stopped quickly when he found it too similar to developing the Union environment in STEM.

And last, surprisingly, would be writing. Journaling, some sort of attempt at poetry, or articles he would want to send in to some website or appropriate magazine but never does– a lot of Nathan’s writing is for his eyes alone, but it helps as an outlet, it keeps him grounded. For a while after leaving MOBIUS, he worked on writing tech manuals for various employers to earn some extra cash, which also ties directly into his interests.

[aftg-and-random-things]

stupid comment abt andrew

"Oh, I leave quite an impression Five feet to be exact"

stop why was andrew the first thing i thought of when i heard this lyric

[chirpsythismorning]

bylers when over 350k people don’t have the exact same thoughts and opinions as them

[butchnavi]

you know as a neurodivergent person I only have two fucking requests of anyone I consider a friend: 1) do not cold shoulder or get aggressively angry with me for something you didn't bother to communicate you had a problem with and 2) do not fucking infantalize me and treat me like a naive fragile broken child who is a burden on everyone in my life. shouldn't be too hard right??? insane how many neurotypicals are fucking incapable of doing the bare fucking minimum

[stinkypeanutbutter]

SpOiled for uehhfhh uhh neck crackalackin ?

OOOO MOVES MOVES GET EM OOO GET EM BEAT EM DOWN !!!!!!!!

KAPOW !!!!!!!

[nostalgia-tblr]

I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron (apart from I skipped some overly long action sequences) and I am not sure so can someone tell me whether or not Tony Stark was the baddy in that film? Because about halfway through I was sure he was but then it was maybe just an evil robot after all and I am confused because either this film was surprisingly subversive or it was about robots hitting each other.

[sky-daddy-hates-me]

Does no one else check to see when posts were vaguely posted? Especially when they relate to dates or "trending"? Am I going to have to start putting little datestamps on my posts?

[mwolf0epsilon]

"Star Wars isn't dead y'all are just haters" "Disney saved Star Wars" "It's the Woke Agenda that ruined Star Wars"

My mans, Disney single-handedly destroyed the Sequel Trilogy despite the Force Awakens being the gateway to something potentially fantastic; MCU'd the Mandalorian (a story which originally had nothing to do with the Prequel and OG Trilogy aside from sharing a universe and exploring a sect of a completely different culture/ideology); ego-boosted both Filoni and Favreau to the point where their OC Verse is not only canon but openly disregarding the Star Wars Universe Bible/Lore; gave us a snippet of what an extremely misunderstood indigenous culture is actually like (instead of portraying them as the savages one of the white leads mislabeled as animals that deserved to be slaughtered) only to then wipe out the tribe we got to know for no reason other than shock value thus alienating indigenous/poc viewers in the most disrespectful way possible; completely threw away the entire message of TCW (that being a clone does not make you incapable of being your own person who has their own thoughts, ideals, moral compass and overall identity) by making TBB (a show that does have it's strong points in set design, soundtrack orchestration and overall sound design, but is extremely weak on both characterization and storytelling because they either make the meaningful plot points stretch too thin or focus on the wrong character completely) their go to show marketed for kids instead of the actual kids programming that people shit on for being for, surprise, kids; constantly disregards valid critique from their consumers (to the point where infighting in the Fandom has gotten extremely ugly) that people either give up on interacting completely or simply vanish and take all their things with them (because no one seems to understand where these critiques come from, or how being unable to admit your special little show is imperfect is actually not a good thing for both you and others).

This isn't even accounting for the fact the Fandom seems to have doubled in it's overall toxicity since Disney took over. Which is par for the course when a mega corporation takes hold of something that started out extremely political in nature anyway. The Cash Cow machine needs feeding after all...

[bell-swamp-fitzjames]

Me: oh i suddenly have a lot of free time, i can be productive & get silly

also me: vaguely stares into space not doing much of anything besides think about the terror bc it's been one of those weeks (months)

[keeps-ache]

wink blink look !!

[skippingseaglass]

chat i think this is why they say that social media is bad for people

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I don’t get why people feel like the Duolingo owl is threatening, if I ever feel like he is I just get mad at him. I could fight an owl. I don’t know if I’d win, but I don’t think I’d lose (two things that can apparently coexist). I think I’d survive at least and that’s not really winning but also not losing.

You wanna be so threatening? Da bør du drepe meg!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

omgg lol [guy who won't stop going "more like scapeGOATED" voice] now hold! on!! lmao [same guy just saw encanto voice] Hold on!!!

[the-halfling-prince]

My brain: You do not need to write a fanfiction for niche 1999 (probably straight to VHS or made for TV) movie The Pact. It was a mid movie. You said it was mid.

Me: If those sad orphans don't kiss right now I don't know what I'll do

[seventh-district]

sighs and collapses and disintegrates into the wind