#it needed editing! i will definitely be updating the ao3 version to this

[blindmagdalena]

Our Blood's Gone Bad

summary: 18+ 1.2k homelander x queen maeve. biting. marking. hate sex. pure angst.

These days, they only fuck after they fight.

an older fic that I realized belatedly I had never actually posted to tumblr! enjoy. 🖤

Somehow, no matter what choices she makes—or thinks she makes—they always end up here.

Maeve is riding Homelander on her knees, fucking herself on his cock so hard that even the reinforced steel beams of his bed are groaning. She can't remember what had sparked the argument that got them to this point, not with every snap of his hips knocking the thoughts from her mind.

She prefers it that way.

He��s sitting up, face buried in the crook of her neck. She’s the only one he can fuck like this. He can finally let go of restraint and chase as much pleasure as he wants. He can’t break her, though god knows she wants him to.

His lips brush along her skin in series of kisses, featherlight despite the brutal way they grind into one another. With a hand in his hair, Maeve gives a sharp yank. “Use your fucking teeth,” she hisses. It wrings a groan from the back of his throat.

They weren't always like this. There were times she could make love to him without needing it to hurt. Nowadays, she treats his tenderness like an insult to be immediately remedied by violence.

Viciously, he complies. He sinks his teeth into her skin, holding her firmly in place with his arms at her back, hands hooked over her shoulders. He bites until he feels her titanium skin nearly give way. He eases back just shy of cutting through it, drags his tongue across the mark it leaves. Like those that came before it, it won’t last long, but he likes to admire them while they linger. Mine.

Maeve will always be his, if only because they both know they will never find this in another person. No one else will ever be strong enough, durable enough, or damaged enough. He owns this part of her. The unbreakable woman who wants nothing more than to be shattered to pieces. Maeve isn’t satisfied. She shoves him down hard, surprising him enough to break his hold. He lays sprawled back against the bed, eyes wide and blown black with arousal. She isn’t the only one who enjoys the fight. She covers his mouth with her hand, practically shoving the side of it between his teeth. “Harder.” Breathing harshly through his nose, Homelander bites down hard, catching the meat of the side of her hand just below her pinky. He watches the way she grunts, still bouncing herself on his cock, desperately chasing her release.

He moves his hands to her thighs, taking hold of her and digging his fingers into the muscle, dull nails biting crescent-shaped wounds into her skin. That makes her moan. The sound goes straight to his cock.

“Fuck, I said harder,” she grits out, her other hand braced on his chest. Their bodies colliding sounds more like combat than sex, impact after impact.

It electrifies every cell in his body, makes him feel like he’s going to erupt with the force of an atomic bomb. He squeezes her tighter and obeys her, biting down until he feels a coppery wet gush spill into his mouth, down his chin.

Maeve gasps with it, an angelic sound compared to the usual rough grit of her voice, and her orgasm suddenly peaks. His eyes roll back, a whimper leaving him. She’s so fucking tight, seizing around him like a vice. Homelander comes hard, back arching beneath her. His ragged moan is muffled into the palm of her bleeding hand. She takes him for all he’s worth, still rolling her hips, riding out the aftershocks of her own orgasm. She takes her hand suddenly from his mouth and grips the headboard instead, her head tipping back, eyes closed. Even when he makes her come, she can’t offer the courtesy of looking him in the eye. “Maeve,” he rasps, exhaling roughly. She hasn’t so much as slowed. She’s still grinding down against him with the same fervency they began with, and his pleasure is beginning to walk the razor's edge towards pain. “Jesus fuck, Maeve– ” “Shut up,” she growls, finally looking down at him. She plants both hands on his chest, leaving a bloody handprint on his bare skin. “Would you just shut the fuck up for once.” Homelander opens his mouth to protest, to snap something equally snide, but he doesn’t get the chance. Maeve drops down and presses her lips to his.

Whatever he had thought to say dies completely, his eyes falling shut. He moves his hands from her thighs to her face, cupping it briefly before pushing them back into her long hair, holding her with all his fucking might. He can’t remember the last time she kissed him. He’s going to savor it, despite the way his spent cock aches. She’s moving too fast, too hard, eating up the way he keens into her mouth. His expression twists. It fucking hurts, but he doesn’t want it to stop. He pulls her closer to him, tangling his hands in her hair, pretending for just a moment that they still love each other. Pleasure and pain spiral up in equal measure. Homelander feels like he’s coming undone with it, muttering incoherently between needy, hungry kisses. Eventually the onslaught of sensation merges into blinding white heat that feels like the aftershock of an orgasm, a second one wrenched from him alongside a sound that comes suspiciously close to a sob.

Maeve comes again, gasping her pleasure into the wet heat between them. The spasms of her cunt pull another pained noise from him. With a heavy breath, she lifts herself off of him, rolling onto her back. She scrubs a hand over her face before letting it fall to the bed. The two of them lay like that for a long moment, Homelander collecting himself while Maeve busies herself with lighting a cigarette. He fucking hates those things, and normally he’d have something to say about it, but right now he finds himself speechless. After a few more minutes of that, she rolls off the edge of the bed, cigarette dangling between her lips, and starts getting dressed. He frowns, rolling onto his side to watch her. “Hey,” he calls, but she doesn’t look at him. “Maeve, c’mon. Stay. For a bit. For more than four fuckin’ minutes,” “I have shit to do,” she responds curtly, avoiding his gaze. He scoffs. “Getting shitfaced, you mean?” She doesn’t respond. She’s already almost fully dressed. “Oh, would you cut the crap, Maeve? You think your life is so fucking hard. You’re a god. That shit’s beneath you,” he says, giving a vague, dismissive gesture. “Stay with me. We’re good together, you know. You just don’t want to admit it.”

At that, she looks sharply at him. He can’t discern her expression. She looks tired, irritated, but there’s also something uncomfortably empty in her eyes. This time, he's is the one to look away, discomforted by the hollowness of her stare. “It wasn’t always like this," he says, a quiet petulance in his voice. “Yes it was,” she responds, the venom in her voice replaced with an aching exhaustion. She makes her way to the door. “You just don’t want to admit it.” She doesn’t slam the door, but she might as well. The sound of it echoes too loud in his ears. Homelander is left cold, alone, and bitter.

[suzukiblu]

Day thirty of fic NaNoWriMo, obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU. And yes I DID win NaNoWriMo, thank you for asking. ❤ This is the last day of NaNo, obviously, so I'm gonna take a little bit of a break from this fic due to being just sliiiiightly burned out from writing 1k+ a day in it for the past month and all, but I intend to start editing it and posting chapters of it on AO3 in the next week or two, so it'll be both easily bookmark/subscribe-able and updating on there soon!

They go through all the boxes, Tim suffers a bit for it, and Kon laughs and makes him suffer more, the bastard. It’s fun, though, even if now Tim would really prefer to never stick his hand in another box ever again in his life. 

The last box Kon directs him to is full of layers of distinctly cashmere-esque fabrics, and Kon smiles a little and ducks his head again. Tim is disgruntled, but charmed. 

They wander through the exhibits, and Tim feels pretty good about his activity-picking when he realizes Kon’s stopping to look at all of them and actually seems interested in all of them. They have to circle back a couple of times so Kon isn’t doing anything too super-powered in front of other guests, but they do hit all of them. Some of them are more interesting than others, in Tim’s opinion, but Kon still tries them all. Tim wouldn’t complain even if he were bored out of his mind, though, given how invested Kon gets in sorting and mixing the tables full of colored glass beads and making waves and whirlpools in the water fixtures and manipulating the kaleidoscopes and chimes and everything else. 

Kon spends the least amount of time with the auditory and olfactory stations, though he’s happy to try all the little hors d'oeuvres that Tim assumes are supposed to be covering “taste” for the exhibit. Visual he seems generally curious about, but definitely tactile wins. Like–far and away, does tactile win. They spend twice as much time at the tactile stations Kon is least interested in as they do any two of the others. Tim doesn’t mention it in case it’s not on purpose. He still doesn’t want to make Kon feel self-conscious or anything. 

Anyway, the tactile parts of the exhibit were the whole reason he picked this as a date activity, so what, is he going to be bothered by having made the correct deduction or assumption or whatever? Not freaking likely. Actually if anything he’s going to need to privately gloat to himself about this later. Bask in it a bit. 

Also take some notes for future dates and things to buy Kon and whatever else. 

More cashmere, to start. A lot more. 

Tim sneaks a few more pictures of Kon as they walk from station to station. Kon laughs at him every time he catches him and takes one of him too, which is incredibly flustering. Tim cons him into a few selfies in self-defense, which turns out to be a terrible idea because it still involves him ending up in pictures and, worse, involves him ending up in pictures with Kon, who takes the excuse to press in close and kiss his cheek and just be all kinds of appallingly adorable, the asshole. 

Kon uses the first picture he took as Tim’s contact picture and makes one of their shared selfies his phone background. Tim is mildly mortified but also desperately wants to earn lockscreen status, which is a terrible idea because what if Kon ever takes his phone out around the team or Red Tornado or, god forbid, Bruce? 

Tim should definitely make sure Kon doesn’t put him on his lockscreen. 

. . . but like, if he did . . . 

There’s a clay station. Kon stays at that one the longest, making weird little abstract shapes and surprisingly accurate miniature versions of the sculptures tucked away in the corners of the gallery with TTK. Tim hadn’t even noticed him looking at any of the sculptures, but in retrospect he never actually needed to “look” at them, did he? And on that note, Tim guesses the accuracy shouldn’t be any kind of surprising either–Kon must have a really good sense of spatial awareness, if nothing else, and of how things “should” be shaped. 

By the time they get through the last station of the exhibit, they’ve been at the museum almost twice as long as Tim’s most optimistic estimates had allowed for and he’s had to sneak off to the “bathroom” for five minutes to push their reservation back an hour. Tim has absolutely zero intention of rushing Kon, especially if he’s having a good time, so it just makes more sense to reschedule than to put him on a schedule. 

Though he did have to actually make sure to go into the bathroom to do it, since Kon might’ve noticed him not heading that direction. Tim doubts Kon’s paying attention to what anyone’s doing in the bathroom, for obvious reasons, but he still probably would’ve noticed the date he was briefly concerned might be a supervillain just ducking around a corner to make a phone call ten yards away, no matter how Bat-stealthy said date was about it. Like, that seems like a stupid thing to expect him not to notice. 

They stop by the gift shop on their way out–well, Tim detours Kon to it with subtle herding, anyway–and Tim manages to convince Kon to pick out a couple of things. He ends up with a couple of sort of fidget toy-type puzzles and a little three-pack of little tubs of a clay-like play sand in bright colors, which Tim thinks is probably meant to function as some kind of stim toy and was probably something specifically sourced to go with the event, and Tim “accidentally” throws in a couple of fancy candy bars from the front register. Again: Kon needs calories that weren’t directly sourced from cafeteria food from a definitely-not-OSHA-compliant cloning lab. 

Maybe Tim can send Kon a fruit basket or ten while he’s still stuck at Cadmus. Those probably come in tropical themes. 

Alternately, maybe he can just kidnap Kon outright and trap him in a nice new cul-de-sac until he gets used to it. He could get him actual groceries, then. Lots of them. Fruit and vegetables and entire spreads of “things that weren’t made in an OSHA-noncompliant cafeteria”. That’d be nice. 

Also he could send that Hawaiian food truck by on the daily, if they were up for it. 

They share the candy bars on the walk to the restaurant–meaning, Tim takes two perfunctory bites of each and tricks Kon into eating the rest with basically zero effort–and it’s . . . nice, honestly, just walking around together. Just being together. Not that this is new knowledge, after the mall, but it’s still novel enough that Tim can’t help indulging in and enjoying the experience. They don’t usually get much time alone together, much less time that isn’t spent either fighting supervillains or dealing with emergencies. So–it’s nice, yeah. 

Tim likes it, he means. 

They make their adjusted reservation, and Kon peers around the restaurant awkwardly as they’re led to their table. Tim resolves to do whatever it takes to get him to relax, up to and including embarrassing himself in some way or another. He’s probably going to do that anyway, given how most of these meet-ups have been going. 

“Does it qualify for ‘nice’ enough so far?” he asks once they’re seated, and Kon blushes, then flashes him a grin. 

“It’s okay, I guess,” he says, then bites his lip with a brief flicker of insecurity as he glances down at the menu–specifically the prices on the menu. “Um . . . are you sure you wanna spend this much on me, though . . . ?”

“I want to spend my entire trust fund on you,” Tim says matter-of-factly, and Kon lets out a weird little laugh and ducks his head again. It works a little better this time, since he has the menu to hide behind right now. 

“I already like you, man,” he says, which is still inexplicable but not something Tim is actually gonna argue with. “You don’t have to keep buying me stuff.” 

“I like buying you stuff,” Tim says. “I’m gonna keep doing it as long as you’ll let me.” And after that, he’ll figure out a way to sneak doing it. 

“Just because you like it?” Kon says, glancing at him over the top of the menu. 

“Because I like you,” Tim says. “I mean, no offense to the hostess, but I wouldn’t enjoy buying her dinner this much.” 

Kon bites his lip, then ducks his head again. His face is red. Tim feels the urge to kiss him again. He probably should’ve found time to do that on the walk over or something. Or as soon as he first saw him. Or just at any point so far tonight, because the urge is getting seriously distracting now. 

“So when you said you wanted to go somewhere after this too . . .” Kon trails off, flushing darker. 

“There’s a late show at the planetarium about the sun’s role in our solar system and the life cycle of stars,” Tim says. It might be too loose an association, but . . . “I thought you might be interested in checking it out.” 

Kon stares at him for a moment, then turns absolutely crimson and hides behind his menu entirely. 

“Okay,” he manages, his voice a little cracked. Tim’s pretty sure he could’ve said he’d rented them a hotel room and gotten a less embarrassed reaction. So . . . that’s a thing. 

Okay. 

“I really do want to spend the money on you,” he says. “Apartment and all.” 

“An apartment,” Kon says, glancing over the top of his menu at him again. “And bills and groceries and an . . . allowance.” 

“Yes,” Tim says. No point in beating around the bush, he figures. It’s all things he’s already told Kon anyway. 

“And not just because I saved your life,” Kon says. 

“Not just because you saved my life,” Tim agrees. “I just want to give you those things. Or anything you want, really. Which–well, what would you want?” 

“Um,” Kon says, just barely lowering his menu as his eyes skate away. “Well . . . could we like . . . keep hanging out outside the theoretical apartment and stuff? If we did . . . that?" 

Tim feels something absolutely giddy and absolutely painful in his chest, hearing that question. Just–what does Kon think, that he just wants to toss a lease at him and never see him again? Or just only come over to . . . actually, wait, maybe Kon does think–ugh. Ugh. Fuck, that is not what he’s trying to make Kon worry about here. 

“Yes,” Tim says firmly. “As much as you want.” 

“Mm,” Kon says, biting his lip again. His face is still red. Tim wants to give him every single thing the world hasn’t given him, which he knows for a fact is a truly fucked-up and probably borderline-insurmountable amount of things. 

But he still wants to give it all to him anyway, and then think up a few more things besides.

[thebubblyship]

I got permission. And so begins my ranting. Strap in fellas.

So I recently got into printing out some fanfics physically, and the first one I had to tackle was the first 25 chapters of an amazing fanfic called Yuuei Survival Guide. The art and the writing are not mine, but I do plan on actually drawing a custom cover for the last 25 chapters so I don't feel guiltly snagging someone else's art for it.

So that's the front cover! The story heavily focuses on Oboro and Izuku's growing relationship so for the first book (I can only print so much in one book), so I knew right away I wanted for the two of them to be seperated on the front and back of the covers for the first book, and for them to be together for the second book (symbolizing their friendship growing).

That's why I threw Izuku onto the back cover with the description, along with them having the day/night theme. I feel like the day/night cycle symbolizes them pretty well.

Obviously, required spine with title on it so I don't lose it amongst my other books. I meshed their sky colors together with a blend tool and changed their opacity in the middle so they come together for the spine.

Book title with author, very required very cool.

And here is the second page, because I wanted the first page to be the gap page (if that makes sense) in case printing went wrong. I also included a cute piece of fanart I found for the fic along with a quote because I found it rather adorable.

Following is where it gets messy. I was able to download the full fanfic off of Ao3, but the file was so large word just died out on me so I switched over to just copy and pasting, editing while I go. Especially since I wanted to go through and format. That's when I noticed the author has begun to go back and re-edit through the book to update it to their current writing style, because I have such convient timing lmao.

I indented the chapter titles down a good few lines, made the first part of every chapter a bigger font than the rest, and just went to town. I also found a very lovely page break online that I added, since it fit the theme and looked rather nice.

In total, this physical version totalled to about 650 pages for the first 25 chapters. The end page down below, along with some more fanart:

I think in total, making everything took me about a week or two to do? Since I put it into a google doc, I was able to work on it during slow hours at my job and knock it out. Obviously printing and shipping added onto that time, so in total I'd say around a month to produce it?

I absolutely adore it, it came in this morning and I was grinning like an idiot while I checked it out. I plan on editing the last 25 chapters and making some art myself for it, since I: A. Need to actually draw fanart for this platonic duo, love them, and B. Have a very specific idea for them I want to do for the cover.

Definitely made some mistakes along the way for this first one, but there's only up to go in doing this! I love being able to physically hold it and it's definitely going on my self for a constant read. It's so beautiful!!!!

@lowlywriter I'll figure out how to condense down instructions on how to print it, along with getting a zip file of the cover layout and everything for it. (And I mentioned this earlier but I definitely did see the writing changes, last I checked you finished chapter 4 I believe? So there definitely is a writing tone shift in the book but I don't mind lol).

I'm so happy with the final result and I can't wait to tackle the last 25 chapters aaaaaaaa!!!!!!

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

what are the fics that you're currently reading that are still getting updated?

Okay, so. Fair warning, this is mostly going to be "Fics that have been always slow updating & fics that went on an unexpected hiatus and have me scratching at the door, crying for an update, with a silent prayer when I open ao3" galore.

Barely a Planet, Barely Pluto gotta love dystopian post-game. and Kokichi's service dog, very important.

fool me twice

Pine Soot [I am so normal about those two fics, definitely not thinking about them on a daily basis and wondering about future developments, you know if those were finished I would binge them and reread regularly, content that is catering to me personally, because the slow burn would boil over and be ruined if it was any faster, fuck communication, getting together isn't even on the radar, there are more important things, bait me with a scenario that could be used as an excuse to make them make out and make them fight instead, I'll lick it off the floor, thank you]

honorary mention to Romantic Rivals it's just one chapter, but I love the concept

Me into you body swap fun

Can You Not? [now. what I am feeling for the awaited update here is more dread than excitement, but I loved this fic from the beginning and the early chapters were everything to me for a while, before we reached the suicide arc I came back to it daily, I still want to see it through and hope there's a way for it to end well]

Helping Hands(ies) [I've learned that atp some people think it's just always been called the full version, but that was an April Fool's edit, since that's when the last update posted. Tbh, if it doesn't update I'll still reread it every once in a while, easily one of my favorite fics ever, fwbs are tied for first place with fake dating for my favorite trope, and it's in the same spirit]

Truth Bullet: Bloody Kokichi ch3 rewrite, we always love to see Shuichi actually help Kokichi, but with this twist? tasty

meeting your match actually recently updated and left me with a fresh wave of hunger for more

Apple of Temptation what even is saiou nation without BrightStar posting, come on, we had a fic coming one after another, so spoiled, what I am to do without a regular dose?

x.X.x.Ch3ck3r3d.K1ng.H0rs3.G4ym3r.x.X.x's Guide to Boring Roommates (That Are Definitely Not Cute At All)

aaand I think I mentioned all the other ones in the other post, highlighting Healing is a Made-Up Concept for people that are Decidedly Not Kokichi Oma one more time tho, since I put it in the already bookmarked section, but the updates been coming in rather quickly this far, so I am hooked on it

+ one last honorary mention to Ghost Fucking 101, really just what I needed, it cheers me up to see it update

[sasukimimochi]

MDZS PROJECT MASTER POST!

Hi everyone!

I've changed the way that this is set up by using google drive to outsource each section bc my post was breaking, this new setup makes it easier to edit and of course the post i'm using can continue to be used without breaking.

The hyperlinks attached to the titles are generally the "first chapter" or "part" for the AU or the source for the information about the AU. some of them don't have a lot of info so they're just linked to their original posts, but the big ones have larger sources on google drive!

BEFORE YOU START READING, make sure you're looking at my original post so you can see the most up to date version.

See the full post without all the fuss here on google drive.

MASTERPOST UPDATED LAST: [ 10/5/23 ]

.✦"Ghost of Mine" / GOM - RATED EXPLICIT [ACTIVE] CH 20/?

See the full section and art list here. (you can also read about RHFF & TWPT there).

GOM SPINOFFS:

"Rose Hips and Flushed Fingertips" / RHFF [working on in bg]

"The Wild Plum Tree" / TWPT [working on in bg]

.✦“Son of the Yiling Laozu” / SOTYL - Rated Mature* [Inactive] *(Rating may adjust to Explicit if i deem it bad enough, but i'm just not sure all of what is gonna be in it despite having a good chunk of outline done).

See/Read more about SOTYL here.

.✦“Clash of Immortals” / COI - Rated Explicit [casual updates]

See/Read more about COI here.

.✦“In My Blood, Stardust Blooms” / IMBSB - Rated Mature* [casual updates] *(Rating may change depending on if i don't add anything explicit).

See/Read more about IMBSB here.

.✦“The Dead Keep Walking” / TDKW - Rated General* [casual updates] *maybe Teen if gross things are described, tbh more likely to be teen but not sure.

See/Read more about TDKW here.

.✦"Possession of the Burial Mounds" - Rated Explicit [casual updates] *Rating may change (rn its explicit for dark themes/"spice".)

PBM is a short project revolving around wwx becoming "wrong" during his 3 months missing in burial mounds.

Music playlist!

.✦Salt & Vinegar - Rated ??? [inactive]

Prompt

.✦He's Definitely Sober - Rated ??? [inactive]

Prompt

.✦Breaking Dawn - Rated Mature [Casual Updates]

Shattered Reflections (Origin story)

Breaking Dawn isn't quite modern, but it is later than mdzs time setting. No summary written yet, but all you need to know is that werewolves exist in this universe.

.✦The Night We Met - Rated ??? [Paused]

(Merxian/Traveler!Lwj AU) + Merxian/Merji AU (unnamed) - might tie this to Merxian/Traveler!Lwj au.

MerJi/TravelerJi WIP / Wangxian Prompt 1 WIP MerXian sketch / MerXian 1 (nudity & wips) MerXian 2 (sfw)  / MerXian 3 (B&W) Wangxian Prompt 1 cont. sketch Stay with me (prompt 6 + art) Deleted Scene for prompt 7 Allure of decency MerXian sketch (referred to in prompt 6 and 7) Deep Sea MerXian Edit (along with the Ao3 link for the ficlet collection).

I created these two mermay au's for mermay prompts i wrote. You can read the prompts on Ao3 as well.

Music Playlist here.

.✦Suns Out, Buns Out! - Mature

BunXian Design (link to ficlet) BunHuan Design (and ficlet)

Random Wangxian/mdzs things:

Emoji writing prompts He's a biter ficlet for @/Jiaoji (canon-themed mdzs with divergance) Ao3 "fluffles" collection, where you can find all my ficlets together (minus The Night We Met and other au's that are to be posted individually).

-

[streetkid-named-desire]

Hi you can call me ratstick, I'm an autistic trans nonbinary 30-something (they/them or e/em/eir)

Asks and DMs are always open!

Feel free to ask about any mod I'm using, where/how I took a shot, or anything else about my VP/mods!

Pillowfort for nsfw VP/VP I'm afraid will get bonked by Tumblr. I'll always post a safe version with a link to the full photoset.

FAQ

Summary of how I dealt with the Relic in their post-canon fix it AU and why Bea has quest VP and stuff (contains fic spoilers)

Bea's cyberware: FlexxSys

Rat's Quick and Dirty Guide to Refitting for Flat Chest

Writing

AO3

[IN PROGRESS] A Streetkid Named Desire: Definitive Edition:

Johnny Silverhand has been dormant inside Vincent Guerra's brain for two years, leaving him lonely and rudderless. V fills the black hole in his chest with meaningless sexual pleasures. Meaningless…until he stops at a strip club named Doll Parts and meets Bea, a Solo secretly working for Arasaka. Watching her dance, he realizes something is different about her. She's not just a stripper, there's more to her. And V needs to know everything.

[ONGOING] Heart-Shaped Reliquary fic link masterpost: Collection of short stories and one-shots including backstory fics!

[ONGOING] From Dogtown with Love photostory masterpost: Post-canon AU: Judy helped V create a BD video game to help him process the trauma of everything. V takes Bea through his time as a spy for the FIA.

OCs

Vincent (V) Guerra

Batsheva (Bea) Cohen

Henrietta (Honey) Martinez

Nate (Rat) Flick (they/them or he/him)

Sally Spiegelman

Sandy Sanders

Ezra Gershon

Miriam Cohen

Tags

#emotional support imagination playground fic updates/brainstorming

#OC: Vincent Guerra

#OC: Bea up to 11/4/23, switched tag to her full name

#OC: Batsheva

#OC: Henrietta Martinez

#OC: Nate Flick

#OC: Sally Spiegelman

#OC: Sandy Sanders

#OC: Miriam Cohen

#otp: love at first bark Sally and Nika Yankovich

#otp: cat and mouse Bea and V

#otp: saka suckers Rat and Takemura

#otp: toxic yuri Honey and Maiko

ship: no apology Kerry/V 2077-2078

ftp: net critters Rat and VG

ftp: touch grass (VG and @ totentnz's VS)

#quest vp for exactly what it says on the tin

#cyberjew for all the Nomad Jewish lore and posts about V and Bea being Jewish

Ship Playlist

Last updated: 08/18/2024

This will be updated as needed/when I feel like it/when I'm at my desktop

OC ART BELOW THE CUT!!!

Bea with her iconic HJKE Yukimura by @kjetll!

Cat and Mouse by @nananarc!

Sketch by @heywoodvirgin

By NukaVex

[zz-chikorita]

JR Update

*Professor Farnsworth voice*: Good news, everyone!

So, I've been doing some thinking (scary, right?) about how my JR series is formatted strangely since I never used AO3 before then. But, I also remembered that it actually worked well for my first few dedicated readers who happened to not have English as their first language (if yall are still out there, i love you and I appreciate you!), so the use of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, Scots, eye dialect, and pidgin English were sometimes difficult to follow. Having annotations made is possible for them to enjoy my silly little story. I also remember asking my early readers what their stance on smut was and more or less, they told me that was not what they were interested in, hence me posting smut chapters/scenes as separate works.

I acknowledge that the audience following this story is much broader since then and I also admit that, now that I know how to use AO3, posting a fic with chapters is a lot less prep work than the way I've done JR TwT

Be that as it may! I have decided to compromise! I will continue to release 'chapters' the way I have, complete with annotations as to make it accessible to anybody out there who may need it.

But, in addition! I've created a new work in the Hoist the Colors Series that will be a single work made of chapters and, yes you guessed it, it will be a less cluttered, streamlined version of JR. The story is the same, but hopefully, the formatting will make it a cleaner, more immersive experience. And also smut scenes will be integrated into it(although yall already know that's not what the story is about, so don't expect it to just become porn with plot all of a sudden)

So yeah, basically new parts to JR will be released as they normally were AND in a work I've simply titled Jolly Rogers: Guardian of Alola (ya know, keeping with the theme of all the parts being named after pokemon moves ;)

It will start from the beginning, and I'll also use this as an excuse to read and edit each chapter, because I just fucking KNOW there's gonna be a typo somewhere despite the fact I've read ALL of my chapters each no less than 300 or so times 🙃 Anyways, so for my sanity, my goal is to post a chapter a week, starting from the very beginning. Of course, I will be actively working on the story and will definitely post it as normal should I finish it before the chapters catch up to that point.

Does that make sense??? Just lemme know if yall have any questions.

Thank you everyone for your patience and for sticking with this story that I have put so much care and love into 💜 it means the world to me!

Mahalo, my friends! 🤙🌺 See you soon!

TLDR: I'm re-releasing JR in a work/chapter format that some may find easier to read. The story is exactly the same, though.

[keldjinfae]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers! Spread the self-love 💞

Okay, so first off, thanks to @dear-massacre for this one. I got to filter through a lot of things I wrote for other fandoms besides Teen Wolf, and while I won't be sharing them (purely because most of them fell victim to the Great Strikethrough Purge, and the "clean" versions I have up on the Pit that is fanfiction.net are... frankly, things I would delete if I could remember what the hell my log-in is), I did remember one I co-wrote with a friend of mine over a decade ago. And neither of us remembers how to log into that old account we created solely for the purpose of writing something together (let me just say, AO3 allowing for co-creators is a fucking godsend), so the link for that one will have to direct you there instead of AO3. I may be able to update this with an AO3 link, provided @caseyvalhalla (said cowriter) is able to find a full version of the fic in their backup drive (which would be outstanding, seeing as how my copy of the fic was lost at some point about three or four PCs/laptops ago).

I also left WIPs out of this list because I feel like that might be too cruel of a tease, seeing as how I haven't updated them since about 2011.

Freaks and Fools is a Halloween-themed fic that Casey and I brainstormed together in about two hours after the initial joke of mashing up Kingdom Hearts and Peanuts. One of us said "Axel is Snoopy, sleeping out on the lawn," and it suddenly turned into him also being Johnny from The Outsiders; what followed was a feverish brainstorming session of determining the perfect way to balance drama and humor. Then we wrote and edited the whole damn thing over the course of three coffee-laden weekends.

I'm Not Asking Questions, I'm Taking My Chances is the first fic I wrote for the Sterek Reverse Bang. I'd previously written a fic for the Sterek Reverse Quickie, and it was my very first Teen Wolf fic, period, while I fucked around and found out if I'd be able to write for the fandom. Turns out, I could. The minimum word count for the RB was 5k, so naturally I wrote something up in the 80k range because I have zero chill.

It's a fantasy AU that very loosely (seriously, so loose that you definitely don't want to be relying on this fic to catch you in a trustfall exercise) incorporates themes from the Merlin series. Writing it helped teach me how to better plan out scenes, in terms of "do I really need to write out this whole scene independently or could I just incorporate it briefly into this already-existing one?" It also gave me better practice at determining when I was going to have to let scenes go altogether, maybe with the notion that I might write them someday and add them on later.

You Gotta Promise Not to Stop When I Say When is a fic I wrote for the Sterek Reverse Quickie, during which I was paired up with the same artist who I'd written for during my very first RQ. She wanted comfort, made a moodboard about it (sadly, Discord stopped image hosting so the links to all of her previous artwork are all broken), and I decided I wanted to write comfort as well. I gave her two choices (Derek takes Stiles's pain, or Stiles is a vampire sharing a house with Derek, and both of them accuse the other of being a squatter--it's a long, stupid story that has gone off the rails in a meme prompt thread on Discord), and went with the one that both of us could sink into.

This one is probably my absolute favorite because I literally just wrote what I know. Stiles is disabled, Derek helps him cope with it. I can't really sell it any better than that, other than to say that I wrote my own personal experiences, but Sterekified.

We're Floating in the Moonlit Sky is a Sterek fic I wrote for a little something called the 1000 Cakes Challenge, which provided the writer and artist participants with a word, an action, and a setting, and had us all spin our own take on them. The word was "kumquat," the action was "pursuit" or "sleepwalk" (I incorporated both--again, zero chill), and the setting was a gorgeous painting of a snowy forest that one of the moderators made herself just for the challenge. Initially, I wasn't even going to participate because I'd literally just finished writing my latest Sterek RB fic and thought I was burned out. Then an idea smacked me in the face right as I was falling asleep.

I love this one because it's more or less just me allowing myself some pure self-indulgence. There's some angst, there's some drama, but most of it is just seeing how many Christmas carol references I can squeeze in as puns. Stiles is half-elf and half-frost sprite, Derek is still a werewolf, Peter is Krampus (thanks to @ice-mage, because "of course Peter is Krampus"), and Noah is Santa Claus.

My Echo, My Shadow, and Me is the Sterek Reverse Bang fic I wrote before I got started on Floating. I somehow managed to write 100k+ words in a bit under four months, and satisfied my desire to write a season 3a "fix-it" (of sorts--more like a revision) in the process. I don't know if the experience would be the same for @nerdherderette, who wound up beta-reading "the Beast in Blue" in the course of about 20 hours, but it was damn satisfying to write.

Essentially, all of season 3a still happens, but Jackson never leaves and Cora never arrives. I wanted to explore everyone's strengths and flaws, and I wanted to write an alternate take on the nogitsune without having to rewrite 3b as well.

[tossawary]

I finished rereading SVSSS’s main story and I’m going to get to the extras again next. I forgot how funny this story is. I forgot just how sad this story can be as well (Tianlang-Jun and Su Xiyan, Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang, Yue Qingyuan and the Original Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe’s abandonment issues).

Update on the Daemon AU, “Sit With Your Soul”. (Summary: Still planning on continuing it with more and plottier arcs, but I want to do a reread and edit of the first arc beforehand now.) 

I think that I am going to have to do an edit of the first arc of my new Daemon AU, “Sit With Your Soul”. Not a complete overhaul of plot or anything, not changing anything to do with the structure or what happens in scenes, but I feel like I’ve gotten a much better handle on Shen Yuan’s narrative voice now, and so I want to tighten up my narrative style (the wording of certain things, mostly) to bring it more in line with SVSSS. I also want to tighten up a few world and character details, even if it’s an AU and I’m overall pleased with how I’m managed to keep a decent foundation in canon in most of my fanfiction even when I’m intentionally jumping off it.

I’m also going to have to go back and name some of the OCs and the daemons if I’m going to commit to writing a longer and plottier story. When I started writing the Daemon AU, I didn’t know how far I was going to go with it; it was mostly about Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu’s relationship. As I got really into it, by the time I posted, I was like, “Oh, I’m definitely writing more of this.” When I was mocking Airplane Bro in the story for not bothering to name daemons... I was kind of calling myself out for avoiding naming so many OCs. I wasn’t sure whether or not it was going to be worth establishing so many OCs...

(This is exactly what happened with “pride is not the word I’m looking for” and the An Ding disciples... They didn’t get names because 1) it felt right for Shang Qinghua, but 2) I didn’t know if they were going to matter that much...)

The edit shouldn’t take too long. I was going to need to reread the first arc anyway to write the Shen Jiu POV reflection on the first arc that I’ve been planning, so it slots neatly into my to-do list of writing projects. (Now that I’ve reread most of SVSSS, I feel like I’ll be able to write a proper commentary for “love to the ones I’ve never met” and better reflect on PINTWILF.) 

I’ll keep a copy of the original version of “Sit With Your Soul” around somewhere. And I’ll alert people to when I’m actually going to post the edited version, so they can download the original if they like, to compare and contrast. I’ll also try to keep a “patch notes log” for people to review afterwards.

Oh, side note: I recently edited all my stories on AO3 to adjust the spacing between paragraphs (thank you, Find & Replace functions). There are a few spacing issues here and there still, which I’m tackling as I notice them. So if you’re like, “Hm, this looks different,” then that’s probably why.

[memberment]

The End Is Near

I'm sorry, but having running gags across my fics is so fucking funny to me. Like I think this is the third fic I've mentioned NO ONE wanting to get Clyde started on the topic of vampires since I first thought about it and it has made me laugh every single time.

I have another three where it is implied in some way shape or form that Bebe literally drives like a fucking lunatic (and does it well) b/c she loves NASCAR or wanted to be a NASCAR driver in some way shape or form (this spawned from a phoned in joke in Tweek's version of guide)

AND THERE ARE SO MANY OTHERS BUT LIKE THESE TWO MAKE ME LAUGH SO HARD. (I'm thinking about this bc I'm working on the end and I have just implemented the gag of Clyde not shutting the fuck up about vampires (Tolkien and Craig are both annoyed by this.) LMFAO)

Anyways I'm 15.6k into book 3. Craig's chapter might be ridiculously long, but I am not giving him two LMFAOOO.

1:35 guys I'm doing something fucking insane rn LMFAO

3:42 okay, I just finished doing the insane thing. Do you guys wanna know how many words I wrote, in this the month of August 2024??

128,607.

This does not include minor edits, notes, or anything not SP related. IT HAS JUST BECOME AUGUST 20TH. I HAVE WRITTEN 770 WORDS SINCE MIDNIGHT. I'm laughing so fucking hard. Anyways. Decided I'm gonna be posting a monthly wrap up that's gonna have everything I've written the entire month. If I knew I was gonna be on AO3 longer than seven fanfics, I would've been doing this, but live and learn, right? Idk what I'm gonna post it on though bc that would abs fuck my word count LMFAOOOOOOO. Also ao3 posts only allow 500k characters, this single doc that contains 19 days plus four hours has 708240.

Maybe I'll just drop the link somewhere. This is literally insane behavior. BUT I ALREADY CAME THIS FAR LIKE I NEED TO SHARE THIS LMFAOOOOO

Anyways now I'm rereading Genesis bc I can't pick a fucking project so Genesis updates may or may not be here. Also, I am starting to wonder at what point does something go for horror elements to straight up horror. Because I fear I have definitely breached into horror territory with that one. LMFAO. Also I'm probably posting Tammy's chapter early because honestly I want these fucking intros out of the way SO I CAN GET TO THE STORY LIKE NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THEY'RE DRIVING ME INSANE. WE NEED TO BE ON CHAPTER THIRTEEN LIKE YESTERDAY. OR FOURTEEN. OR 25-26. screams.

I'm laughing. Here y'all go. It's 253 pages rn. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1inE_K8XDazRiUoTgNz2CtBOBp9kkdDk8yBzU8s444lo/edit?pli=1

NEVER FUCKING MIND IT GOT DELETED WOW LMFAOOOOOO

I JUST STRESS DOWLOADED LIKE ALL MY FICS BC IDK WTF JUST HAPPENED LMFAOOOO WOW THAT WAS SO RUDE

I HAVE A BACKUP BUT NOW I'M AFRAID TO POST IT LIKE WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN TF

(4:59) I figured out how I'm doing this LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

alright I'm not doing it all at once though bc if I get flagged on here I'm gonna start TWEAKINGGG

but it's happening LMAO

6:27 there is now a Tumblr account with everything I have written so far for the month of august. One of the posts is literally the size of 45 pages worth of google docs. HERE YALL GO.

anyways I'm going back to being insane and rereading genesis goodbye

[voxofthevoid]

Hey, I actually don't know if you've ever answered the question I'm going to ask (I'm like 90% sure you did lol), but you're very active on Tumblr, so I couldn't find an updated direct response 😅 - have you ever considered to post more often on ao3, not just one chapter for each work you're currently posting? From my understanding, all JJK and Marvel works you have on a current schedule are finished? And don't get me wrong - of course you have life and I don't mean you SHOULD post everything all at once, but as a fic writer myself - I do not have a patience to sit on my works for long! Like I need to share my obsession I have with certain ships ASAP. For example, your Shibuya Swap fic - someone already picked on that too - will take 2 years to post! That's insane, I don't know if I would like my own stuff in 2 years enough to not feel embarrassed about it and delete, and you will be coming back to it on a monthly basis for 2 years at best, 2.5 at worst, if something will not change the schedule by that time.

Or could it be, that those works aren't actually *finished* it's just that you have a general idea or "drafts" how will it start, progress and end?

I really admire your consistency though, but sometimes can't help myself, but think "Man, I wish you'd post *that* fic more often, it's SO good!" Or post like one fic, just 3-5 chapters of it in a month or sum. But alas, I will restrain myself from begging on my knees in the ao3 comments, because I can understand how annoying it can get, FAST (I dealt with certain people there, too).

Have a great day and please don't take this question as an attack, I'm just a desperate fan of yours, who can't even mind my own business most of the time due to being an ANNOYING person with ADHD lmfao🙏

You WILL see me generally commenting *OMG SO GOOD WOW HOLD UP* gibberish on your works, though (it is a threat).

Haha, don't worry, I won't bite your head off for this. No offense taken or attack interpreted 💜

I have answered a few versions of this question before, twice in relation to JJK and at least once in relation to MCU. They're all somewhere in this tag (link only works in browsers), and the former two will be more recent...but well, that tag has 127 pages of results and Tumblr search sucks balls; even I can't find my posts most of the time, so I definitely don't expect others to. But I did hunt down the most recent one: https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com/post/746745605036064768/hey-i-was-wondering-why-you-post-one-chapter-a

As for stuff you've asked that's not covered in that answer—

My works are all finished, not just drafts. The "plot bunnies" I talk about are outlines of varying detail, but the fics I'm posting to Ao3 as well as the fics I've posted in previous WIP Wednesday installments are all complete. They need editing, but my first drafts are essentially my final drafts. I proofread to catch typos and grammar errors and to generally polish the phrasing. My day job is editing, which means I'm extremely lazy about editing my leisure writing, but I manage a decent pass.

Regarding how I feel about my work years down the line: I've more or less settled into my writing style. It's still changing and growing, and I enjoy experiments and challenges, but the base quality is at a level I'm content with in terms of both prose and mechanical elements. I'm not embarrassed by anything I've written after 2018, and I don't really see that changing. I will always see the flaws prominently, both objective and subjective ones, but I'll also see the strengths. The older fics (2014–2018) are of significantly poorer quality as well as clumsily executed in many, many ways, but I'm still proud of my ideas and absolutely delighted by how they still entertain so many people. Regardless of my personal feelings toward my writing at a given time, I won't delete my fics.

As for patience, I am indeed patient 🤣. Well, for a year or so, I've been posting snippets from whatever I'm currently working on as WIP Wednesday posts, so I am actively sharing the pieces that I'm working on, but I'm pretty comfortable with sitting on the full stories for months or even years. It just doesn't bother me.

The only issue with how I build a backlog is that once I lose interest in the ship/fandom, my posting slows down, and I get 100 times lazier about editing—to the point I'll likely post the rest of my MCU and Bleach works all raw and dirty. One of the reasons I'm posting as much as I do for JJK is that I'd like to avoid a similar fate in this fandom. Fool's errand with how my inspiration and writing function, but hey, no harm in trying.

And, in line with the post I've linked above, even if I had fewer fics on the roster, my pace would remain a chapter a month per fic. Let's say I suddenly stop writing and also whittle my backlog down to only 2 fics: That won't mean I'll post 3 chapters each for those 2 fics every month; I'll still only post twice a month in total—one chapter from each fic.

As long as no one's being rude or entitled (I've seen some asinine takes about prewritten fics being posted slowly), I consider people wanting more of specific stories as a compliment! However, you'll have to be patient right along with me 😂

And that's a wonderful threat; I look forward to it 🥰

[pialikesskz]

boarding: the floor plans

so um... hi folks! if you're here, you've probably been reading my skz fanfic boarding over on ao3. some of y'all have been asking to see my floor plans that i've made for the story. this is me, obliging. hope you enjoy :)

introduction and vibes

i'm planning to upload some edits to the earlier chapters within the next month or so to give a bit more of an image of what i imagine the space to look like, now that i actually have it. in the beginning, i was really just putting scotch tape over the world-building in order to get to the character interactions. for now, here's the edited version of the initial description of the school:

"In the distance, the sparse forest through which they’re driving melts smoothly into a series of rolling hills. With how early it is, the hilltops still catch a hint of morning reds and pinks from the lazy sunrise. The car rounds one last bend in the road, and Felix’ breath catches in his throat. The ground slopes gently upwards for a few hundred yards, and at the peak of that hill stands an ancient estate, cloaked in brickwork and ivy, rising up out of the landscape with impossible grace. It is majestic, and dignified, and makes his heart sink in his chest with a pain like simmering water." (Intro Pt. I)

i can't actually draw, in fact i can barely sketch, so u will just have to use ur imagination on that. but keep it in mind for overall vibes.

the school grounds

this is the worst of these sketches, and i apologise, but this is generally how i imagine the layout of the school. that big thing in the front is the mains, then the courtyard, and the three houses: yang, park, lee. the line around it is a sort of brick-wall fence, old-looking and worn. it's all surrounded by forest that gets thicker the further u venture away from the school, but light enough to allow for hyunjin to catch glimpses of the sun reflecting off the lake on a good day. here is part of the updated description:

"Changbin directs them outside by way of the back door, which leads out to a large manicured courtyard bisected by cobbled walkways; it’s structured a little like a park, complete with benches clustered around trees and small sectioned-off parts clearly set up for games. It’s about a five-minute walk through the courtyard to the dorm buildings, though that’s with the added weight of the suitcase. Felix tries his hardest to memorise where he needs to go — the school grounds certainly seem large enough to get lost in at some point." (Intro Pt. I)

the distance between the houses and the football field is way larger than it appears here; unfortunately, i only had so much paper to work with, and i wasn't gonna start again at this point. it's definitely a five to ten minute walk from the field gate - u can see it in the gap in the fence - to the football field. the path to it slopes vaguely downward. the building next to the football field is the auditorium where choir practice happens, and sometimes assemblies. (we'll get to that in the story eventually, i promise.) also there's changing rooms for when there's football matches.

the mains

this is how i imagine the layout of the main building. the cellar is on a separate page because i make bad choices in life. "T.H." stands for teacher housing. anything with diagonal lines across it is storage of some sort. the grey-shaded thing on the second floor is a bit of roof - for architectural interest, u feel? i play a lot of sims.

the dorm houses

this is how i imagine the layout of the three houses - or, at least, park house. (btw has anyone figured out why i named the houses the way i did? it made me feel really smart when i came up with it.) more on the single dorms later. the stuff in dotted lines is, like, stuff that exists on one floor but not on others - like, the ground floor has those wing things to the sides, but there's no equivalent above or below, it's just roof. hope that makes sense.

the dorm rooms

and finally, this is the layout of the dorm in my head. yes, it's pretty small, but consider this: stuck-up private schools don't care about the rights of children. for this one, i actually tried to work with some realistic measurements, but like, take it with a grain of salt, y'all, i'm an english literature major. as to who's in which room, peek at the top of the page. updated description:

"(The door) opens into a small common room populated by an assortment of worn-looking furniture: a closed wooden storage cupboard in the corner, a mostly-empty bookshelf leaning against the wall, two sofas with a wild assortment of pillows on them placed haphazardly around a chipped coffee table." (Intro Pt. I)

fin

so that's that! i've put a lot of thought into this space, and i think at this point i've got it down pretty well. of course, these are all just what i have in mind myself - if it doesn't fit with your vision of the story, that's cool! keep picturing that! we love anarchy here.

feel free to let me know your thoughts on the floor plans, the story, anything at all! i am really happy to talk to y'all, and answering tumblr asks make me way less anxious than replying to ao3 comments lol. have a lovely day, and i'll see you for the next chapter!

-pia

ps: i took the leap out of my comfort zone and put this on my personal skz tumblr, instead of one specifically created for the purpose of sharing ao3 things. that's big for me. be nice.

pps: if you know me in real life, and you want to tell me that my writing is cringy: don't! it will make me sad. so mind your business.

ppps: if anyone steals/reposts this, i will hunt them down and make them eat a ten-pack of tissue paper. do not test me.

[trickster-shi]

Okay so. I've read your home across the universe series fully, and I'm busy with my second read through. It's just so good. I'm waiting for my AO3 account to set it up and be able to actually bookmark and comment that way but I seriously need you to know how amazing the whole 'verse you've created is. Reading it and seeing all the updates pop up has been the highlight of a very bleak year.

I absolutely love your writing style, it captures everything in such a perfect measure and mix of the emotional, physical, thoughts, actions etc. It's honestly incredible. I can picture everything so clearly as I read and it's wonderful.

I especially love the way you characterise everyone. Even while making the 'verse your own and tweeking the characters personalities cuz if their ages and lives and backgrounds, you stuck to the basics of all their personalities and that's an insane talent you have.

I'm a massive fan of Noah Stilinski and the way you write him is literally my favourite written version of him. I eat it up like I'm starving. The whole dynamic and flow of his and Stiles' relationship is brought to incredible life in your writing. I LOVE me some Stilinski fam. The acknowledgement of the ways Noah can fall short while having him do better and all that was awesome.

Also, what first gave you the idea for the series at all?? And what ideas can you share that you might have for it in future? Do you have any headcannons that you have specific to your verse?

Just go ham and talk about your writing cuz I love it and I would love to hear and see more!!!

Loads of love and support!

- Tae

Oh my gosh, Tae, this comment made my morning and made me cry! Thank you for your kind words, I’m so very happy you enjoyed my ‘verse so much, it’s the highlight of my day to know it brought someone happiness. (Internet hugs!) And I can definitely go ham talking about this ‘verse :D

To be honest, I wrote this series because I needed to prove to myself I still could write something, anything. When I started it I was near to burnout. I’d self published a book I’d been writing and rewriting for years, and every draft I wrote for the sequel just did not work. I kept finishing drafts, editing, tweaking, and nothing in it came out right. So I would start from scratch and try again, and again, until I got to a point where it was like…I didn’t know if I could write anymore. I felt like I had lost the ability, like everything I’d ever learned about writing was trickling away and there was no way to stop it.

All my words felt like garbage.

I kept trying because writing has been the main constant in my life and living without it, giving up, was too scary to contemplate. But there was a wall I just couldn’t seem to get past, so I turned to fan fiction more and more to lose myself in when writing left me feeling like a fraud.

I got hooked on time travel au’s and read everything under that tag for Teen Wolf. I also read some superhero au’s, and ideas just started click-clacking in my brain, bouncing off each other, trying to make a picture. I resisted at first because I’d never written for Teen Wolf before, just Supernatural, so I was apprehensive about getting the characters wrong. Iin the end I decided, what the hell. Fanfic was supposed to be fun, I needed something fun, something interesting and new.

And I wanted more Sheriff Stilinski because, hell yeah, he is an AWESOME character and his relationship with Stiles was one of the first things that really fascinated me when I started watching the show. I always wished more had been done with him, there was so much potential. So once I had enough ideas mashed together in my head I wrote Teenage Vigilante Witch fast and hard. I didn’t let myself sit too much on it. In fact, it was finished before I started posting and I got the whole thing up in one day and then just sat back and marveled at the fact that I’d finished something. Finished it, threw it out into the world, and didn’t let my perfectionism get in the way for once. And it grated, because that story was (and still is) incredibly rough.

But I proved I could still write. That gave me hope.

Then the comments started pouring in. It was like discovering what water was like after wandering a desert for an eternity. The kindness, the encouragement, the love that came through from everyone who read it was amazing and I couldn’t believe it. That initial validation warmed me and commenters wondered if there would be more. I was still gun-shy about sequels, especially since I hadn’t written the Sheriff’s POV yet. So Case 405 came about as testing the waters with his POV and inner voice, and that was well received, so I sat down to figure out what else I wanted to explore, because I loved playing in this world and I knew there was more to tell.

Before I started on Whistle in the Dark, I decided on some parameters for the series to keep it narrowed down and deliberate. I have a bad habit of wandering sometimes, and losing the plot, and then getting myself stuck, which was part of what happened with the sequel I wrote and burned out on.

I decided that I wanted to focus on the father-son relationship, as well as the budding brotherly relationship between older and younger Stiles. I wanted to explore the canon trauma Stiles came with and to build off it for what I changed, because so much of his suffering was swept under the rug. I wanted to dig into what it would mean to be transported to a parallel world with no hope or point in returning, how that would effect someone, how they would learn to build a new life for themselves.

So that became the focus of the new stories and as I built and explored I listened to the comments people were leaving to get a feel for what worked and what didn’t and the feedback was so helpful in how the series came to be shaped. For once I didn’t feel alone on the journey, and it continues to humble and amaze me that so many other people found comfort in the story and loved it enough to keep up with it for over two years. The entire experience taught me a lot, enough that I feel way more confident returning to original stories because my biggest dream is still to be a published author and for my books to support me.

But I’m still going to write fan fiction. Some sandboxes are too much fun not to play in and I have a TW/Firefly series that will be updated soon, as well as a couple unrelated one shots that I’ll be finishing next year when I’m not working on a new original project that I hope to have published by the end of 2023 or early 2024 (fingers crossed!).

As for the future of the series, I have one more story planned to tell in it. More of like an extended epilogue that takes place about seven years down the road for all the characters. That one will complete this series. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that the Stilinski clan continues to expand a little, the young pack continues to get into shenanigans, the hunters are still sort of around, and the sheriff is still watching over everything with a sharp papa bear-eye. ;) Oh, and Derek and Stiles are even more adorable and supportive of each other (or more obnoxious, if you ask Mini-Stiles, he's got Opinions).

Oh, headcanons. I could be here for days with this, lol! I will say there is one head canon I really hold onto but didn’t use for this series, and that is that Parrish is actually Camden Lahey. I saw that one going around on Tumblr and forgot about it, then saw it again after writing Camden into the story and it was one of those moments I wanted to scream, because that would have been such a cool element to include and for Stiles to grapple with. But I’m okay with how Camden turned out anyway. And Parrish may find a way to appear in the epilogue in some shape or form, we’ll have to see.

Thank you so much for messaging me today, Tae. It was a wonderful present to find after I woke up this morning and thank you for asking me to talk about the series. It truly became a labor of love and it helped me combat the darkness in my own life so I’m so happy it was able to do the same for others. I would not mind doing this again if there’s anything else you want to know.

Thank you again, and I hope you have a wonderful day and/or holiday! <3<3<3

[evanthetrashpanda]

—My Boundaries—

I decided to make this its own post instead of just having it attached to my intro post!

Keep in mind that I try to be a very laid back/easy going person, but it is very important to me that all of these are respected. I update these from time to time.

These apply everywhere, not just on tumblr.

🦝 : Don’t sexualize me. Compliments/admiring me is fine! Just don’t be weird y’know?

(On that note, I do prefer the masculine version of those rather than feminine and/or androgynous)

🦝 : Don’t trauma dump. I care about you and I want you to be as happy as possible, but there’s only so much help I can give you.

If you actively need someone to talk to, please use one of the resources here: Born This Way Foundation - Find A Helpline

🦝 : Do not talk about/joke about triggering topics. I’m fine with the occasional dark humor, but just use common sense (there's a time & place for everything). I will not hesitate to ban/block you if a joke is taken too far.

🦝 : Don’t go looking for my personal info. I keep those things private for my own safety.

That being said, if you doxx me, I can and will take the appropriate legal action in response.

You can learn more about doxxing here: What Is Doxing - Definition and Explanation And how to protect yourself here: Protect Yourself From "Doxxing"

🦝 : Don’t baby me. I promise I can take care of myself.

🦝 : I’m fine with fanart, fanfiction, edits, and cosplay!

• I'm fine with being drawn as a person or a raccoon, I have no preference!

• Please put the fic on a website meant for fanfics (like AO3, Wattpad, Quotev, FF.N, etc.) so I don't just randomly run across it.

• Please don't create NSFW or triggering stuff when the content is about me. Doing so about characters I've created and/or portrayed is fine! It's just very triggering when it's actually about me, y'know?

🦝 : You can use my face as your pfp (or art of me as your pfp) just don’t go around spreading drama/negativity. I don’t want to be associated with any of that.

🦝 : Don’t LEGITIMATELY ship me with people. Joking about it is fine! I tend to jokingly flirt with some friends, but don’t take it seriously.

🦝 : Don’t call me “dad", “daddy”, or any other type of parental unit. I’m not qualified to be a father. If anything, I’d prefer to be called a “weird queer uncle” or something like that lol

🦝 : Don’t speak on my behalf. If someone is breaking my boundaries/hating me, just ignore it.

You also don't need to tell me if it's happening or not. Chances are, I already know what's going on tbh.

The only exception to this is if someone is claiming I did something truly heinous. Then, and only then, would I prefer for you to bring it to my attention!

🦝 : If I'm on someone else's stream, don't make it just about me. It's their stream. Be respectful to them.

🦝 : I know I’m a small content creator and I try to interact with you guys a lot, but keep in mind that I don’t know you. I care about you, but unfortunately we are not friends. I don’t have to join vc with you. I don’t have to dm you. I don’t have to respond/collab/make a video about/add you etc. You know me, but I don’t know you.

🦝 : Absolutely do not go purposely looking for the people in my personal life. Some may be on social media and some may not be. If they choose to make an appearance, that is their choice, not mine, yours, or anyone else’s. It’s called a personal life for a reason.

🦝 : If I say I don’t want to do something, that is the end of discussion, no matter the subject at hand.

🦝 : Absolutely do not call me by my deadname. It’s called a deadname for a reason.

🦝 : I know that I talk about my abusers on my socials, but do not go looking for/threaten/stalk/etc. them. They may be shitty people, but let me deal with them.

[ckret2]

Chapter 7's been updated for TBOB compatibility! It's also on AO3! And this one's got a LOT of edits, so I recommend rereading it.

"Hey," I hear you say, "I already read this chapter once, why should I read it again?"

Because this chapter heavily changes his first few minutes of life; it explains some of his powers that were previously only explained much later in the fic; better explains his motivations for his early actions; and it also includes a brand new—

Because the chapter's so different, I saved the original version of the first half of the chapter in case y'all wanna compare/contrast to see how much is different. Took out a lot of talk about the Axolotl, since Bill's not surprised to be alive in this version like he was in the original; I'll find somewhere else later in the fic to put the axolotl stuff back in.

####

Bill liked collecting prophecies about himself. Interdimensional historical records only lightly alluded to his presence, but that didn't matter. History was written by the winners about the losers. Prophecies were written by the losers about the winner.

He liked being so important—dangerous enough that people felt the need to write fairy tales about how to kill him.

And he liked the warnings about what threats to look out for.

The Axolotl's "redemption" wasn't a prophecy so much as an offer—although Bill had learned of it in the form of a prophecy, passed from Axolotl to prophet and from believer to believer until the divine gossip grapevine finally reached him. The stupid salamander never even had the guts to extend the offer to Bill personally. And as such, he knew little about the details—like whether it was a limited-time offer that had expired a million years back, or whether Bill could only accept the Axolotl's conditions voluntarily rather than under duress... or even whether it was true. 

Imprisoned in Stanley Pines's burning mind, stripped of every trick and spell he knew, reduced to a delicate two-dimensional shape on a collision path with a three-dimensional fist, he had called out to the Axolotl and desperately prayed it was true.

####

So the fact that he could remember all this was a good sign: he was alive, and he still had his memories.

The prophecy as he'd heard it said something about getting a full pardon by taking another shape in another time—he'd worried that might mean reincarnation, with no recollection of his former life. But no. He was still Bill Cipher. He could pick up where he left off.

Just as soon as he oriented himself.

It took a moment to figure out how to peel open his eyeballs. Two of them, he was pretty sure. He'd expected to be a square or something. Maybe isosceles. But—he rolled his eyes experimentally—he was some three-dimensional animal? His brain registered the sky above as a hazy something-blueish, but that didn't mean much until he knew what kind of color vision this species had. The sun made a long streak across the sky and burned to look at.

He was sure he'd worn one of these creatures before. On a hunch, he ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth—definitely human. His rib cage twitched as he laughed—a bitter hiss, the first time he'd used this body's voice. The Ax had a sick sense of humor, sticking Bill with the species that killed him. Well, fine. He knew more about humanity than humans themselves did, and he'd worn countless human bodies before. This was one of the easiest starts he could ask for.

Now that he knew what he was, the muscle memory came more easily. He sat up on the warm concrete ground to inspect his new prison. Four limbs with five mini-limbs each, no interesting mutations or deformities that he could see, yawn. And human skin came in such painfully boring neutral tones; he'd have to redecorate. He flexed his finger joints experimentally, imagining his hand encased in gold rings and bangles. He could live with that until he figured out how to recreate his real body. The skin was reasonably elastic, neck felt too narrow (he hated how goofy human necks looked), an impressive 20 for 20 arched fingerprints and toeprints (quirky, but Bill suspected the Ax wanted to ensure he'd stand out if he ever got his fingerprints in a police database), head line like a river, absolutely hideous heart line, so-so melanoma resistance, healthy-looking cellulite pattern...

While in the middle of trying to contort himself like a cat licking its butthole, from the corner of one of his eyeballs, he spied a mass of golden yellow filaments dangling from the top of his head. Several internal organs automatically convulsed and spasmed at the sight; white lights and awful gory memories and the room he'd died in flashed by his mind's eye; he felt the flesh on the inside of his throat struggle to thrash around, and had to seal a hand over his mouth to keep from regurgitating whatever was inside him. He closed his eyes to hide the awful filaments dangling down from his scalp but now he couldn't stop feeling them brush against his cheeks and shoulders. For a long moment he was paralyzed in place, heavy breaths whistling through his ridiculous little nose tubes, mentally battling his own body's attempt to revolt against him in his moment of weakness.

This inspection was just a distraction. He couldn't ignore that he was stuck in a carcass made of meat, and even as his pulse pounded in his ears he was marching toward decay. He hated this body. He hated it.

Somebody was going to pay.

####

Bill saw the time police coming around the corner of a crumbling building several minutes before they would arrive. Of all the rotten luck— He contemplated running, considered how far he'd get in a fresh, uncalloused, nude body before a shard of glass ripped his bare feet open, and instead hurried to hide behind a pile of rubble.

As the officers drew closer to the moment Bill saw they would turn the corner, he heard one say: "Would you put that stupid thing away and focus? We're suppose to be on the lookout for Cipher."

Bill's heart leaped into his throat. (He was pretty sure it wasn't actually his heart, but it sure felt like that. Huh. That's one baffling English idiom explained.) They'd found him already? How? Had the Axolotl snitched on him to Time Baby? Was this "second chance" just a petty trick to get him locked up? Maybe it wasn't too late to run—

"But this is stupid," another voice grumbled. "Cipher won't show up here. This is worse than hover car crosswalk duty—"

"Listen," the first officer snapped. "Today is exactly one thousand years since Cipher's death and this is the exact place it happened. Time Intelligence is sure that if he finds a way to return, it'll be on some dramatic anniversary. Need I remind you we've got officers swarming Roadkill County for six months in both directions from his death—"

"I know, I know—"

"—and patrolling on every anniversary for the first century, every centennial anniversary for the first millennium, every millennial anniversary for the first—"

"I know, I know—"

"And if he's going to make a move, there's a high risk that the first millennial anniversary—"

"But the world is ending in less than four months! Why would he come here?"

"I don't know, maybe he wants to watch Time Baby's molecules reconstitute! Our only job is to find Cipher if he is here—Would you put that away!"

The world was ending. That made this 3012. The Ax probably thought he was cute, dropping Bill exactly a thousand years after his death. 

Even better: Time Baby and his goons didn't actually know Bill was here. He could still take them by surprise.

Best of all: what exactly had the Ax promised? Something something another time, another form—Bill never recalled hearing anything about another place. He was still in Gravity Falls.

And that gave him an idea.

Bill peeked over the rubble. The officers were so close to the moment they would turn the corner that Bill could see the irritation on one's face and the handheld game console in the other's hands; and he was also beginning to see the fuzzy shape of his own future self approaching them as a plan formed in his head. He ducked again. Only one shot at this. Would a human think he looked harmless and vulnerable? Those uniformed slabs of muscle were two feet taller than him, and he was naked. Check and check.

He waited until they turned the corner, then stepped out from behind the rubble pile, waving. "Oh, thank goodness, the police!" Probably the first and last time he was ever saying that. "I'm lost, confused, and can't seem to find my clothes. Can you he—" He tripped on a concrete chunk, yelped, and had to grab the officers for balance. "... help." Okay. That was good. Extra harmless-looking. He meant to do that. But he made a mental note to spend a few minutes on walking practice once he got away.

Grumpy Officer was looking toward the sky. "Oh." Gamer Officer was hiding his face behind his game console. "Oh dear." Grumpy Officer cleared his throat and said, "Of—of course. We're happy to help, Miss...?"

Heck. Think of a human name fast. "Tomato."

Gamer Officer said, "This entire decade is supposed to be evacuated, Ms. Tomato. Where and when did you come from?"

"I'm not sure, it's all such a blur! One minute it's August in 2912², the next it's... whatever this is!"

"I have family in 2912². Beautiful year," Gamer Officer said helpfully. Bill decided not to point out that, given how linear time works, he had family in every year.

Grumpy Officer said, "We'll get you to your contemporary authorities, ma'am. They'll help you get home." Still trying not to look directly at Bill, he detached his time tape from his belt, drew it out, and hesitated. He turned to Gamer Officer. "Hold on. Weren't Augusts abolished in squared years?" (Darn. Bill never could remember if it was Augusts or Julys.)

Both officers were desperately avoiding looking directly at Bill, one had his hands full with the game console, the other had his time tape extended inches in front of Bill—now. Bill flung his whole weight on Grumpy Officer's arm to wrench the tape away from him, pulled out a random length, and snapped out of 3012 before the officers could registered what happened.

####

The first jump was just to escape. The second jump took him to a ruined battlefield in the middle of the Time Baby War—Bill knew his human history—where Bill could dump this cheap police time tape riddled with temporal tracking technology and scavenge a military tape off a fallen soldier.

By the time he found a tape in good condition, his abdomen, eyes, and head had developed an assortment of overlapping aches. Nothing he couldn't ignore. But it was worth the effort: the military tape was less prone to overheating, more lax on permitting temporal doubles and time loops, and built with standard-issue paradox-cloaking stealth tech. Even if the time cops followed him this far they'd never know where he went next.

He was continuing where he'd left off.

He wanted to return to the moment he died and murder the Pines on the spot—or, better yet, warn himself ten minutes before it happened. But even the best time tape would struggle to target a temporal paradox as complicated as Weirdmageddon; and besides, Bill was self-aware enough to know if he tried to warn himself, he was at risk of being zapped before he convinced himself of his identity, and then he was really doomed. So he'd just have to focus on revenge.

He'd murder the Pines and anyone else in their stupid shack. He'd dig up the buried treasure Pine Tree and Shooting Star had buried in the woods and liquidate some of the gold. He'd fast-forward until the murder investigation was over and the shack was back on the market, buy it himself, repair the portal to the Nightmare Realm, and restart Weirdmageddon in his dead enemies' own home.

He could figure out how to get back in his real body and pop the stupid weirdness bubble around the town as he went. Minor details. For now, all he cared about was killing the two-faced twins who'd dared try to stop him.

And he couldn't wait to see the look in Stanford's eyes.

The cops said Time Baby had them patrolling Gravity Falls for six months after Bill's death. He set his time tape for February 25, 2013. He appeared in a suburban backyard, snatched a bedsheet drying on a clothesline and a couple safety pins from a nearby laundry basket, made himself a chiton tunic, and headed for the Mystery Shack.

####

In retrospect, he probably should have planned the murders a little more thoroughly.

Time for chapter 7 of "Human Bill Attempts To Murder The Pines And Ends Up Their Prisoner/Involuntary House Guest," which will eventually get a title, I'm sure.

Featuring an explanatory flashback on how the hell Bill made it from reincarnation to an attempted murder at the Mystery Shack; his first full day as the shack's prisoner; and angst.

The masterpost for the full fic is available here! Chapter edited 9/23/2024 for TBOB compatibility!

The first thing the reincarnated Bill Cipher's new ears heard was a crack of thunder.

And then he felt the damp soil beneath him and the chill air above him, the position of his limbs, smelled the green forest life.

He was alive, he was... he inspected his teeth with his tongue (ooh, wisdom teeth)—he was an adult human, and he had his memories. It worked. His head felt clear, freed of the fog of the constant antipsychotic drug fog. He was still Bill Cipher. He could pick up where he left off.

Just as soon as he oriented himself.

It took a moment to remember how to peel open his two new eyeballs. He was half-laying half-sitting in a freshly dug hole too small for his whole body, limbs splayed out over the dirt. Had the Theraprism's reincarnation machine spontaneously generated his new body straight from dirt? How Pandoran.

He was in the center of a tiny clearing, surrounded on all sides by a ring of evergreen trees but with a view of the cold, clear sky above. His brain registered it as a hazy something-blueish—the color Earth's sky usually appeared when he was looking through human eyes. And that meant one thing:

Whenever and wherever he was, it wasn't Weirdmageddon.

No way had that dumb reincarnation machine actually accounted for Earth's uneven weirdness to randomize when and where he landed. It would ruin everything if it had! 

He climbed unsteadily to his feet, searching the area for any identifiable features.

Through the trees, in the distance, he saw the cliffs that the Trilazzx Betians had flown their ship through. Okay! Great! Just as he'd hoped, Gravity Falls's Weirdness Attractor Zone had drawn in an ancient reincarnating alien soul like a flame drawing in a moth. He was exactly where he wanted to be. 

He just wasn't when he wanted to be. Why hadn't he landed during Weirdmageddon? What moment in all of Earth's history could possibly be weirder?

The stone bridge over the hole left by the main body of the ship had collapsed, and human train tracks bridged the gap. That left a pretty narrow window he could have landed in, a little over 200 years around Weirdmageddon.

Maybe Weirdmageddon was too weird to hit. Bill had killed time itself. Maybe rather than falling into the weirdness barrier surrounding the town, he'd slingshotted around it like light around a weirdness black hole's event horizon and been flung somewhere else on the timeline. Did the barrier work like that? He wasn't sure, he'd have to ask—

No. Bill wasn't asking him. This time, he'd figure out how to bring down the barrier himself.

But if Bill was in Gravity Falls, there was a chance his backstabbing pawn was currently here, too. And if so, that meant he could personally show him just what happened to people who crossed Bill Cipher. Maybe he'd strangle him with his bare hands, just so he could look in his horrified eyes as the life left them—

His fingernails dug into his fleshy palms as he imagined wrapping his hands around Ford's throat. This body would never do, though; he'd have to shed it. If he were post-Weirdmageddon, his corpse had to be somewhere in the area; he could repossess it and pick up where he left off. If he were pre-Weirdmageddon, he wouldn't be able to obtain physical form, but he could just return to the Nightmare Realm and redo Weirdmageddon in a few years, no loss...

He shut the body's eyes and focused on degloving the expendable corpse from the immortal energy being within.

And nothing happened.

He tried again to peel off the body. Nothing. Trying to leave his body felt like sticking a car key in a plastic toddler car: not only did it fail to start the engine, but there wasn't an engine there to start.

Had the reincarnation process altered his soul? Was he no longer a triangle?! Had he been reshaped into a human spirit to match his body, was he gone, had Bill lost himself—?

He didn't realize until he broke skin that he'd started trying to claw his skin off. He forced himself to stop.

But no, that didn't make any sense. Humans could astral project their souls from their bodies. He'd personally taught humans how to do it, so he knew the process. Even if his soul was human, he should have been able to escape this body. So something else was keeping him in. 

But what? Some magic? Something stitching his soul into this body?

The horror ripped raw all his fears, his doubts, his denials; for a moment, he couldn't lie to himself about his situation. So here was the truth:

During the entirety of timeless captivity, he had told himself that the rest of himself, his full self, with all his energy and all his power, had been locked outside the Theraprism; while only the little triangular avatar he used to interact with the world—his anglerfish's lure—was pinched inside, pinched tightly enough that the rest of his power couldn't flow in and could only thrash impotently outside.

But the truth was, he didn't know that. He hoped that, but he didn't know.

The truth was, he hadn't been able to feel his power since the Axolotl dropped him in the Theraprism. The truth was, he wasn't sure if he'd even felt them at all since the moment Stanley's mind began to burn.

It was true that Bill's little triangular avatar was just the little glowing lure dangling from the vast, vast anglerfish of his powers. It was true that Bill's power was contained externally. It was true that he'd been told clearly during admission to the Theraprism that he wouldn't have access to his power.

But he didn't know whether his power was sealed off—like squeezing the walls of a straw shut so no liquid could be sucked through it—or if he'd been cut off from it, like beheading a dragon.

He couldn't feel any of the metaphorical psychic "muscles" he typically used to climb in and out of puppets—as though they'd been amputated. He couldn't feel most of his powers. Why?

Was it because they'd been sealed off at his admittance to the Theraprism and he'd skipped a step during reincarnation that would have unsealed them?

Or because the Theraprism's reincarnation machine, as a therapeutic tool, was designed to prevent recovering patients from fleeing their bodies before they'd finished fully reintegrating into mortal society?

Because he couldn't reach the Nightmare Realm from here?

Because all his power had been destroyed?

Because the reincarnation had truly, irreversibly turned his soul human?

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried, at least, to feel the shape of the energy trapped inside the matter. Was he still a triangle? Or had he been remade human?

He couldn't feel anything. Just blackness and numbness and silence and cold. The space beneath his skin may as well have been a hollow void.

He didn't realize until the blood trickled down his wrists that he'd started clawing his skin again. He stuck his fingers in his mouth to prevent them from clawing again.

When his head bent forward, he spied a mass of golden yellow filaments dangling from the top of his head. Several internal organs automatically convulsed and spasmed at the sight; white lights and awful gory memories and the cold silent suffocating void and the room he'd died in flashed by his mind's eye; he accidentally bit down on his fingers and felt the flesh on the inside of his throat struggle to thrash around; he had to yank them out and seal a rubbery hand over his mouth to keep from regurgitating whatever was inside him. He closed his eyes to hide the awful filaments dangling down from his scalp but now he couldn't stop feeling them brush against his cheeks and shoulders and all he saw was the dark, the endless dark—

He was dizzy. He dropped to his knees, dug his fingers into the soft earth, and tried to remember how to breathe. For a long moment he was paralyzed in place, heavy breaths whistling through his ridiculous little nose tubes, mentally battling his own body's attempt to revolt against him in his moment of weakness.

Somebody would die for this. The Pines family, the zodiac, that backstabbing Axolotl, D-SM5 and all its condescending cronies, the Henchmaniacs who'd abandoned him to the Theraprism, the whole Earth, the whole universe—everyone who'd been responsible for Bill ending up like this. He'd kill and kill and kill until he stopped feeling like he'd been buried alive in hell.

His eyes burned, but he didn't cry.

####

There was a rustling behind him and a human grunt. He turned—and saw, behind him, the beforeimage of a fight a few seconds in the future: a short wide-hipped human female with curly gold hair and a tall narrow human male with straight black hair. There were both naked. Why were a couple of naked humans about to fight in front of him?

Wait—he grasped for a handful of the sickening yellow filaments peeling out of his flesh and pulled it into his peripheral vision. Curly gold. Oh, that was him fighting in the future. He shuddered and let go of the hair. So why was he about to fight a human?

He could figure that out later; he studied the near-future battle in the space in front of him, the blurry moments with several possible outcomes, squinting at the possible futures where he won to see how he did it. He seemed to win in most timelines. Opponent was pretty clumsy—

Even though Bill could see exactly when the human would stumble out from between the trees, the moment still arrived sooner than he would have liked. The human glared down at Bill, panting and sweating in the chill air; and then he asked, suspiciously, "Bill Cipher?" What?

But of course, the human hadn't actually said "Bill Cipher." That's just a convenient translation for a word that can't be rendered in any human orthography. Bill Cipher was one of several names Bill used on Earth, a couple of human words Bill gave to humans as his name because they could pronounce it; he handed out different names to different species. The name this human had said, although heavily accented, was still recognizable as one of the names Bill used in—

—the Theraprism.

His rib cage twitched as he laughed—a high, hissing titter, the first time he'd used this body's voice. "Heyyy, were you one of the guards? Did you get too close to the altar when—"

"You," the guard snarled. "You've gone too far this time. I'm taking you down, Cipher." He charged toward Bill, fist raised.

And Bill just grinned. He had a lot more experience being human than this joker did—and he knew all their weak spots. He'd already seen how this ended.

He let the guard get close enough to begin swinging his fist—then kneed him right in the human design flaw, rammed his head through the guard's nose, and knocked him on his back. The guard was out cold before he hit the ground. Bill stood on his throat until he was sure the guard was never getting up again. He could feel his lungs expanding and contracting and his blood pulsing through his neck; he could feel the adrenaline in his hands and brain like a drug.

He laughed.

It turned out he only needed to kill one person to stop feeling like he'd been buried alive in hell. Now he just felt like he was partially submerged in heck.

Bill was great! Everything was fine! He totally hadn't had a panic attack within five minutes of reincarnation, he definitely knew how to breathe, and he felt fantastic. In fact, he didn't mind being trapped inside a human body at all. It was funny! So, so funny! Funny little prank reality had played on him.

See? He was a good sport. He was the best sport.

Well, he'd get reality back.

####

As he walked in the direction of town, he took stock of his current body and what he could do with it.

He still had his first most important power—the one that even the Theraprism hadn't been able to take away without keeping him drugged out of his mind: his all-seeing eye.

He'd been born with a strange eye that let him see into one higher dimension than everyone else. From the second dimension, he'd been able to see into the third dimension: the starlight and sunbeams shining down on his world. From the third dimension, he could see into the fourth: the past and future superimposed onto the present like transparent ghosts showing him where everyone had been and would be, blurry around the moments where he saw multiple possible futures.

He looked at the sun. At full power, Bill could see days into the future and past—multiple white streaks across the sky tracing the sun's path as it rose and set—and further with a basic telescope; but now, based on the short streak of white light he saw before it trailed off into the blue, he suspected he could only see about fifteen minutes into the future and past if he squinted. And he couldn't see the brilliant ring of extraturquoise that should have haloed the sun. Human color vision was an embarrassment.

In the second dimension, his all-seeing eye had also been able to see through objects—or, rather, over objects, bent up slightly into the third dimension so it could look down upon the flat world. When he tried to bend an eye up into the fourth dimension, he could see through the nearby trees, but it felt like his eyelids were trying to pop his eyeball like a pimple. His eye hadn't started bleeding immediately, so it was easier than trying to peer into the fourth dimension with a puppet's eyes, but not by much. He'd have to use that sparingly. And he'd better not risk attempting pyrokinesis unless the fire was more important than his eyeball.

And finally, for the first time, he turned his full attention to his new prison. He'd gotten a glimpse of it when he'd been watching his future actions, enough to tell it wasn't bad looking for a human. Pretty triangular body shape. Neck was too narrow, though—he hated how goofy human necks looked.

Four limbs with five mini-limbs each, it was nice to have ten fingers again but he didn't see any interesting mutations or deformities, yawn. He'd hoped he might mutate fractal phalanges. And on top of looking disgusting, human skin came in such boring neutral tones; he'd have to redecorate. He flexed his finger joints experimentally, imagining his hand encased in gold rings and bangles. Maybe he could stab some graffiti into his dermis, too. He could live with that until he found his way back to his real body.

Aside from the expected patches of lighter and darker melanin, there was no variation in his skin tone except for a band of slate grey splotches stretching from his left shoulder down to his right hip. They looked like two-day-old bruises, the hemoglobin dull and blackish-blue—but why would an hour-old body be created with a two-day-old bruise?

It took a moment of inspection to recognize that the "bruises" were birth marks, and they took the same path across his torso as the fatal crack that had split his exoskeleton in half. Ugh. Moving on.

He hopped on one foot at a time to inspect the bottoms (and tripped and tumbled into the dirt twice in the process). All 20 toeprints and fingerprints were, unexpectedly, still triangular—Bill wondered if the Theraprism did that on purpose to make reincarnations easier to track—head line like a river, absolutely hideous heart line.

Skin was reasonably elastic. So-so melanoma resistance. Healthy-looking cellulite pattern. How was his design flaw looking?

While in the middle of trying to contort himself like a cat licking its butthole, from the corner of one of his eyeballs, Bill saw two time cops emerging from the trees and heading his way several minutes before they would arrive. Of all the rotten luck— He contemplated running, considered how far he'd get in a fresh, uncalloused, nude body before a sharp rock or broken branch ripped his bare feet open—he'd already had to slow down and adjust his footsteps to be more tentative just from walking toward town—and instead he to hide behind a cluster of trees.

As the officers drew closer to the moment Bill saw them pass his spot, he heard one say: "Would you put that stupid thing away and focus? We're suppose to be on the lookout for Cipher."

Bill's heart leaped into his throat. (He was pretty sure it wasn't actually his heart, but it sure felt like that. Huh. That's one baffling English idiom explained.) They'd found him already? How? Maybe it wasn't too late to run—

"But this is stupid," another voice grumbled. "The energy signal from Cipher's resurrection is already fading, he's got to be long gone by now! Assuming the signal wasn't just an instrument error caused by the dumb ship under town!"

"There's no way it was an instrument error."

"If Time Baby really thought he'd still be here, he'd have sent more than a handful of us! This is worse than hover car crosswalk duty—"

"Look," the first officer snapped, "the tantrum Time Baby threw after the Theraprism notified him that Cipher's at large and probably headed back toward Earth is the worst I've ever seen. Think about the lives lost, man! The cities leveled! How much angrier will he be if no one finds him—"

"I know, I know—"

"—and Time Intelligence is sure that if he's coming back to Earth, it will be here! Need I remind you we've got officers swarming Roadkill County for six months in both directions from Weirdmageddon, and checking the site yearly for the first century in either direction, centennially for the first millennium, millennially anniversary for the first—"

"—I know, I know—"

"—as well as checking out every suspicious energy reading on the whole timeline! I don't know about you, but I do not want to be transferred from 'check out suspicious energy reading' duty to 'six-month stakeout' duty! But if we return to Time Baby with nothing—"

"But what if there is nothing?! Think about it—if Cipher were still here, wouldn't he be, you know, conquering the world?"

(Oh, he wished.)

"It's not our job to make sense of the mind of an escaped alien madman. It's just to find him if he is here—Would you put that away!"

Of course the Theraprism had sent a warning to Time Baby! Time Baby and D-SM5 probably adored each other, pair of dictators that they were.

But: Time Baby and his goons didn't actually know Bill was here. He could still take them by surprise.

And that gave him an idea.

Bill peeked around the trees. The cops were so close to the moment they would emerge from the trees and pass Bill's hiding spot that he could see the irritation on one's face and the handheld game console in the other's hands; and he was also beginning to see the fuzzy shape of his own future self approaching them as a plan formed in his head. He hid again. Only one shot at this. Would a human think he looked harmless and vulnerable? Those uniformed slabs of muscle were two feet taller than him, and he was naked. Check and check.

He waited until they turned the corner, then stepped out from behind the rubble pile, waving. "Oh, thank goodness, the police!" Probably the first and last time he was ever saying that. "I'm terrified confused, and can't seem to find my clothes. Can you he—" He tripped on a root, yelped, and had to grab the officers for balance. "... help." Okay. That was good. Extra harmless-looking. He meant to do that. But he made a mental note to spend a few more minutes on walking practice once he got away.

Grumpy Officer was looking toward the sky. "Oh." Gamer Officer was hiding his face behind his game console. "Oh dear." Grumpy Officer cleared his throat and said, "Of—of course. We're happy to help, Miss...?"

Heck. Think of a human name fast. "Tomato."

Gamer Officer said, "What seems to be the problem, Ms. Tomato?"

Now think of a story. "I... I witnessed a murder!" He pointed back the direction he'd come from. "It's just that way! Hurry!"

Grumpy Officer said, "That's the direction of the signal from Cipher's resurrection! Show us!"

As Bill led them back toward the guard's body, Gamer Officer asked, "Do—do you need some clothing, ma'am?" He patted down his jumpsuit and found no removable clothes.

"It's fine, it's not that cold."

"Did you... lose your clothing during the murder?" Grumpy Officer asked.

"Yep! Sure did!"

"How?"

That was a good question. "I'm not sure, it's all such a blur!"

As they emerged into the small clearing, they stopped dead at the sight of the body. Gamer Officer took one look at its face, turned away, and covered his mouth. Grumpy Officer knelt by it, careful not to touch it as he examined the damage. "He's definitely dead. This doesn't look like Cipher's usual work, though."

Trying to shield his eyes from the body, Gamer Officer asked, "Did you see what did this?"

Did he want to confirm to Time Baby's agents that Bill Cipher had been in the area? Probably not—last thing he needed was more Time Police. "I'm not sure! It could have been a bear."

"Hmm." Grumpy Officer rubbed his chin. "Well—we'll get you to the contemporary authorities, ma'am. This looks like a case for them." 

"You go," Gamer Officer said, voice strained. He pulled his time tape off his belt. "I'll report this to HQ."

"Good idea." Grumpy Officer paused. "Hold on. We don't look like contemporary authorities. How did you know we're cops?"

Both officers were desperately avoiding looking directly at Bill's naked body, one was kneeling by the corpse, the other was turned toward the woods and had his time tape extended inches in front of Bill—now. Bill flung his whole weight on Gamer Officer's arm to wrench the tape away from him, kicked Grumpy Officer's butt to knock him sprawling over the corpse, pulled out a random length of time tape, and snapped out of the year before the officers could registered what happened.

####

The first jump was just to escape. He popped open the time tape with his teeth and a sharp rock and packed it with dirt—it'd probably kill the tape after a jump or two but it would block Time Baby from being able to detect it, which was more important. The second jump took him to a ruined battlefield in the middle of the Time Baby War—Bill knew his human history—where Bill could dump this cheap police time tape riddled with temporal tracking technology and scavenge a military tape off a fallen rebel soldier. Rest in peace, brave rebel—Bill really wished they'd won the war against Time Baby. Maybe he could fix that for them once he was in charge.

By the time he found a tape in good condition, his abdomen, eyes, and head had developed an assortment of overlapping aches. Nothing he couldn't ignore. But it was worth the effort: the rebel military tape was less prone to overheating, more lax on permitting temporal doubles and time loops, and built to hide from Time Baby and his forces with paradox-cloaking stealth tech. Even if the time cops followed him this far, they'd never know where he went next.

He was continuing where he'd left off.

He'd love to return to the moment he died and murder the Pines on the spot—or, better yet, warn himself ten minutes before it happened. But even the best time tape would struggle to target a temporal paradox as complicated as Weirdmageddon—and if his reincarnation had taught him anything, it was that Weirdmageddon clearly sent travelers aimed toward it astray. The pigs had said Time Baby had them patrolling Gravity Falls for six months in either direction of Weirdmageddon; Bill could return to Gravity Falls before then, start the portal up earlier than Stanley managed to, invite himself through and give himself a few warnings about what to watch out for from the humans...

But that wasn't good enough.

Time moved wrong in the Theraprism. He felt like he'd experienced millennia surrounded by its grey tiles and fluorescent lights; but he also felt like time hadn't passed since his death.

His death was as fresh in his mind as if it had been an hour ago.

And the Pines family would pay for it.

First, he'd murder the Pines and anyone else in their stupid shack. He'd decide what to do next from there. Maybe he would jump a few years into the past and start Weirdmageddon early.

Or maybe he'd just continue where he'd left off. He'd find his corpse—he knew it was somewhere out in the woods—and keep it safe in the shack. He'd dig up the treasure Pine Tree and Shooting Star had buried during the summer and liquidate some of the gold. He'd fast-forward until the murder investigation was over and the shack was back on the market, buy it himself, repair the portal, and then, he'd shake his corpse's hand. He'd restart Weirdmageddon in his enemies' own home, wearing his true form—and as soon as that portal opened up, all his power would come rushing back to him from the Nightmare Realm. Maybe not the most efficient plan...

But so satisfying.

He could figure out how to pop the stupid weirdness barrier around the town as he went. Minor details. For now, all he cared about was killing the two-faced twins who'd dared try to stop him.

And he couldn't wait to see the look in Stanford's eyes.

He set his time tape for February 25, 2013—six months and a day after Weirdmageddon.

####

He appeared in a suburban backyard, snatched a bedsheet drying on a clothesline and a couple safety pins from a nearby laundry basket, and made himself a chiton.

Bill Cipher had billions upon billions of eyes on Earth. There were a million in Gravity Falls alone—stuffed into wallets, peering out of grocery store shelves, nestled into book pages, growing on the trees. He shut his flesh eyes to peer through the others, looking for his corpse...

And saw nothing. When he shut his eyes, his vision went completely black. That had never happened before.

It looked like the solitary dullness void.

He shivered and opened his eyes. He could find his body later. He didn't need it! He had his memory, he had his identity, and he had his all-seeing eye. Eyes. Once upon a time that was all he'd needed to liberate a dimension; and it was all he'd need now to liberate himself.

Provided he also had a portal. And that meant he needed to murder some enemies.

He headed for the Mystery Shack.

####

In retrospect, he probably should have planned the murders a little more thoroughly.

####

June 2, 2013

Bill was locked back in the cellar until the humans could Bill-proof the house—cutlery moved out of the kitchen, phones relocated where he couldn't reach them, dangerous chemicals locked away, etc. His cuffs and restraints were removed, he was handed a few granola bars and water bottles and awkwardly gifted a bucket that he received with an expression that suggested he wasn't quite sure what the humans expected him to use it for, and he was locked in.

And at last, everyone could get some sleep.

It was past five in the morning when Dipper and Mabel collapsed back in their beds. With time travel thrown in, they had been up for thirty hours with only an hour or two of napping. And yet, for all their exhaustion, when the first hint of morning grayness lightened the sky outside, both of them were still awake, staring at dust motes and the old wooden ceiling beams.

Mabel sighed heavily.

Dipper said, "You too?"

"Yeah. I guess it's the chocolate shake and pancakes. What's your excuse?"

"Bill ordered coffee for the table, and nobody told me I couldn't have it, so..."

Mabel laughed. "Evil chaos demon got you! You fell for his trap!"

"Oh nooo."

Neither of them needed to admit that it wasn't the caffeine keeping them awake.

"Hold on." Mabel got out of bed, scooted around Waddles—he took up more of the floor than he had last year—and trudged to her suitcase. She tossed half her clothes on the floor, and pulled out—

Dipper laughed weakly. "You brought those?"

"I thought we might need them. You know—being back here, reminded of everything."

Almost as soon as they'd gotten home last summer, Mabel had started knitting throw blankets depicting the anti-Bill zodiac that Ford had drawn. She gave the first to Dipper as his bar mitzvah gift. She kept the second herself. She mailed the other eight to the other members of the zodiac. (The family therapist their parents had started taking them to said self-expression through art was a great way to cope with difficult experiences.)

Ford had told them the zodiac drawing merely represented a list of people, like a chart with table seating arrangements. They knew the symbol itself didn't do anything. It held no magic, it couldn't protect them. Nevertheless, sleeping under his blanket had done more for Dipper's Bipper nightmares than any dream catcher ever could. Mabel thought wrapping up in it felt like a hug from their friends in Gravity Falls.

She handed Dipper his red blanket with the zodiac embroidered in dark green yarn, and pulled out her own rainbow blanket with black embroidery. Mabel wrapped hers around her head and shoulders like a huge hooded shawl and slid back in bed, her mind and dreams now properly shielded. Dipper stared at the face in the middle of the zodiac for a long moment, before he turned the blanket over so Bill's ever-watching eye could only see the dark surface of Dipper's bedsheet.

And then, at long last, they were safe enough to fall asleep.

####

"So then he said—" Bill put on his best impression of Stan's voice, "'Do you expect us to baby-proof the whole shack in five minutes? No! You're going in the cellar!'" It was actually a very good impression. "And now I've been here for hours. If they think they can trick me into staying down here..." A pinball fell between Bill's flipper bats. He sighed and launched another ball.

"It's downright disrespectful, is what it is," the cowboy skull in the pinball machine said. "Sounds like you've had a rough night, pardner."

"You don't know the half of it." Bill lost another ball in the gutter. "Gimme another three."

"That's supposed to be Game Over."

"Come on, I'm having a bad day. Just a friendly match! Look at my reflexes in this body, you and I both know I'm not high score material."

"Okay, okay. Here."

Ford cracked open the cellar door, flung a wad of fabric down the stairs, and shut the door again. "All right," Stan shouted through the door. "No tourists are around. Solitary confinement's over. Put on some normal clothes and knock when you're done."

"It's about time." Bill lost another ball between the flipper bats. "Sorry, 'partner.' Looks like we'll have to finish this game another time."

Stan, Ford, and Soos automatically took a few steps back as creaks and thuds drifted through the door from Bill climbing up the stairs, as though he were a monster they expected to break through the wood and attack them. He shouted, "Hey, how long does it really take to move a few knives to another room, anyway? I was starting to think you planned to leave me down here."

"We needed sleep! We were up all night!"

"How is that my problem? I never told you to sit up all night staring at me—"

After a few more minutes of back-and-forth grousing, Bill knocked on the cellar door to be unleashed. The shack household had scrounged together an XL yellow-beige pine tree t-shirt (surplus from the gift shop), a set of Soos's winter sweatpants (which Bill found too long and set aside), an elastic-waisted plain green skirt in case the sweats didn't fit (some old thing Abuelita never wore), a pair of old swim trunks (to compensate for the fact that nobody had the energy or motivation to go buy their prisoner underwear today), and mismatched flip-flops (from the Mystery Shack's lost-and-found).

The shack household had not scrounged together a broom to give to Bill, and yet when they opened the door, he was holding one, bristles pointed up, like a poorly-dressed witch waiting to go on an evening flight. The potential weapon was promptly confiscated, and Stan, Ford, and Soos escorted Bill around to the back of the shack. He stared out toward the woods as the door was opened for him, but it was impossible to tell whether he was looking for something specific or just getting one last glimpse of the sky before he was incarcerated indefinitely.

The moment Bill stepped inside, Abuelita was in front of him, shoving a hot plate of chicken and enchiladas in his chest. "Welcome. You are staying with us for a while, yes?"

Bill tried to take a step back, bumped into Soos, and automatically took the plate in both hands. He blinked at Abuelita, eyebrows raised in polite bafflement. "Yes?"

"Yes. Soos told me. You missed dinner." There was loose plastic wrap still half-covering the plate, which had been labeled in black marker: para Bill Cifra - NO TOCAR! "I saved you a plate."

"Oh yeah," Soos said, "Abuelita put that in the fridge for you before we ate last night. She's big on hospitality." 

"Well!" Bill beamed. "At least you have some manners—unlike some people around here who apparently don't care if I miss dinner." He shot a sly look at Ford. "Say, didn't I tell you never to call me—"

"Watch it," Ford said warningly. Stan gave him a baffled look.

Bill chuckled. "So! Does this come with silverware, or—?"

"Here." Abuelita offered him a plastic orange baby spoon. "Soos says you do not get the good silverware. So you cannot kill people."

"Yeah, yeah, I know the routine." He tossed the plastic wrap on the floor and attempted to saw off a chunk of enchilada with the soft edge of the spoon. "Between you and me, I'd be more likely to stick a fork in the microwave than try to kill someone with it—but hey, I'm not the warden."

"You threatened to stab me with a fork this morning," Ford said.

"Nooo, I told you why I wasn't going to stab you with a fork. That's the opposite of a threat," Bill said. (Ford exchanged a sideways glance with Stan, who rolled his eyes.) "Anyway, show me what you've done with this place since I last saw it!" He wove past the humans to duck into the kitchen. "I see you finally got rid of that second stove! Really frees up the space in here, doesn't it! Too bad you kept the gas one. I didn't wanna say anything about this last year, but fix that slow gas leak, would you? If you want to get haunted by carbon monoxide demons, that's your business, but I owe a tokoloshe money."

Stan blinked. "The slow what?"

Ignoring them, Bill went on, "You're gonna have to do something about all this." He waved his baby spoon at the fridge and cabinet doors. "You don't want me to come ask for help every single time I need to eat."

"Actually, that might be preferable," Ford said. "It would ensure you can't tamper with our food when we aren't looking."

"You'll get sick of it," Bill said confidently.

He finally freed up a spoonful of enchilada, stuffed it in his mouth, and tore off a chunk of chicken with his teeth—and then stopped, staring down at the plate in amazement. With his mouth still full, Bill said, "Oh wow, this is delicious! You know, I haven't had a home cooked meal in centuries! And that nutty aftertaste? Mm! You're a daring chef, lady. I love it."

He spat his mouthful back onto the plate. "But unfortunately, I think I'm allergic to one of your ingredients!" He held the plate out to Abuelita, grinning widely. "Would you mind giving me a portion with less cyanide?"

Everyone stared at Abuelita.

She shrugged placidly. "It was worth a try." She took back the plate.

Bill licked the last of the poisoned food off his teeth and spat it on the kitchen floor. "Mil gracias, señorita Silloncito."

She gave the floor a displeased look as she passed to wash off the dish in the sink, but merely said, "Un placer." She gave Bill another dirty look as he shoved in front of her to wash his hands in the sink before she could get started on the plate.

Dubiously, Ford murmured, "Silloncito isn't Mrs. Ramirez's first name, is it?"

"Nope." Stan grinned. "While you were busy studying the Odyssey, I was in South America learning Spanish—you know, a language people actually speak."

"What does 'silloncito' mean?"

"I dunno."

Soos had been gaping at his grandmother since Bill said the word "cyanide." He finally managed to work his jaw enough to say, "Abuelita, what...?"

"Do not worry about it, mijo," Abuelita said sweetly, pulling out a mop.

"Did you just try to...?"

"We can talk later." Abuelita gestured to the door, where Bill was meandering out of the kitchen. "I'll clean now. You go with the others."

As Bill left, he called back, "Next time, I'm making my own plate! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..." He swept past the humans into the living room. "Hey, you finally got enough seating in here! This place is really starting to shed that 'lonely old bachelor' stench—ey, Stanley?"

"Watch it."

Where Stan's old recliner once sat, Abuelita had put her sofa with the pastel yellow floral print. Her blue armchair and Stan's recliner were lined up at a right angle to the sofa to form a seating area around the TV, which had been turned to face all the seats. Atop the decorative T-Rex skull sat a small vase with a few fresh flowers.

Soos dragged his distracted gaze away from the kitchen to point at the floral sofa. "You, uh... you can sleep on the sofa bed. It folds out. We're kind of out of other rooms. I'm in the master bedroom, Abuelita's in the study cuz she gets her own bathroom there and doesn't have to use the stairs, we made the parlor a guest room for the Pineses, the kids are in the attic... and that's pretty much all the bedrooms we've got, dude." Soos shrugged. "Me and Melody, we were talking about walling off the empty attic area to make a sick gaming room? I guess maybe we should think about making it another guest room instead—"

"Which Bill wouldn't be able to use," Ford said, "if it has a door. Besides, I doubt Bill will be here long enough for you to finish any large construction projects."

Airily, Bill said, "Think you'll figure out how to get rid of me that fast?" He didn't even look at Ford; he was busy taking off the sofa's cushions to inspect the foldout bed underneath. "Last time you tried it took you thirty years, and you're 0 for 4 murder attempts so far." Bill tried, unsuccessfully, to lift the folding bed out of the sofa. "Not—counting—all the times—" he grunted with exertion, "—you failed to burn my book."

Voice icy, Ford went on without acknowledging Bill. "And at any rate, I'd rather have him out in the open where we can all keep an eye on him."

Soos glanced back and forth between Ford and Bill as they shot verbal barbs at each other, his fingertips pressed together. "Oookay! So. Sofa bed it is. I like sofa beds! It feels kind of like camping, but without going outside."

"Bet I'm not allowed to start a campfire in the living room." Bill gave up on the sofa bed and looked around the room—and his face lit up like a child who'd just received a pirate ship-shaped birthday cake. "Hey! Is that me?" In his rush to cross the living room, he tripped over Abuelita's blue armchair, flopped flat on the floor, and got back up like nothing happened.

Where Ford had once hung his father's banner from the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel, Soos had put up a new decoration: a knit tapestry depicting Bill Cipher, framed in apocalyptic lightning and hovering over a sea of fire...

... and encircled by the Ten Cosmic Symbols of the zodiac prophesied to witness his defeat.

Bill's smile dimmed. "Ah."

"Oh, hey! That's the blanket Mabel made me." Soos stood next to Bill, admiring the zodiac blanket. "Yeah, she made us all blankets to commemorate our epic battle and everything? She called us up to ask how we wanted them customized and stuff. I suggested the flames and the lightning bolts! Thought they'd look rad. Heh. It's—it's pretty cool, right?"

Bill's gaze slowly traced the confining ring of symbols; and then met the gaze of his own, true, proper face. And he turned away to face Soos and forced his smile wider. "Question Mark, I like your sense of decor." 

"Ha—wait, seriously?"

"Heck, if I'd commissioned a portrait myself, I'd have requested the same! Remind me to show you some tapestries the Northwests have been keeping of me, I think you'd appreciate them!"

"Oh." Soos rubbed the back of his neck. "Huh. You know, I didn't think you'd think cool things are cool. Kinda."

"You kidding?! Fire and lightning! I love it! Like a party with natural pyrotechnics! It's nature's way of trying to unleash a bit of anarchy on an otherwise disappointing little world!"

"Uh..." Soos quickly glanced toward the Pines in a silent plea for help with this conversation, then looked back at Bill. "Yeah, totally dude! It's like... got that boom factor, you know?"

"Boom factor! Ha! You're all right, Questiony." Bill turned his back on the zodiac and swept across the room again. "So! What have you done with the rest of this dump!"

Soos stood rooted to the spot until Bill left the room.

He looked at Stan and Ford. "Do you think Bill, like... knows my name?"

Ford shrugged and made a so-so gesture.

Soos nodded. "Okay." He pulled out a chair at the living room table. "You guys wanna go ahead without me? I think I'm gonna... sit here. And process the fact that Abuelita is an attempted murderer."

As they followed Bill, Stan lowered his voice and asked Ford, "So, uh—what was with that thing about Bill telling you not to call him something?"

"Oh." Ford grimaced. "When we first met, and Bill had me convinced he was some muse of knowledge," (Stan snorted) "I asked if it was alright to just call him Bill. It... seemed too informal for a god." (Stan snorted again.) "Stop that." Ford spoke with great displeasure, as though he were repeating a particularly distasteful joke: "He said I could call him anything but don't call him late for dinner."

"Ah." And that was all they had time to say before they caught up with Bill, Ford had to rebury his memories of the years he'd thought Bill was his friend, and Stan had to force himself to stop wondering about them. It seemed inappropriate to think about Bill making friendly jokes.

####

On Bill's first proper night in the Mystery Shack, he woke in the middle of the night, gasping for air so loudly it sounded like a reverse scream.

Waking didn't improve things.

He was back in the room where he'd died, no light but the eerie blue of invisible flames licking up the walls, his vision framed by golden filaments spilling out of his head. He rolled over and heaved on the floor—and between his stomach's convulsions he made direct eye contact with an axolotl, cold, serene, staring dispassionately at him from an illuminated fish tank—and past the axolotl, he saw an image of himself trapped flat on the wall, surrounded by a ring of his enemies, fire lapping at his heels. And it was just like dying again, he was powerless, he could see his body coming apart in his peripheral vision, he couldn't even float, pinned to the ground by gravity—

He had to claw at his skin until this human body's uncomfortable alienness overrode the memory of his gold exoskeleton shattering.

His rebirthmark burned.

The next morning, the household found no signs of Bill in the living room except for a puddle of dried puke.

The sofa bed's mattress had been dragged halfway up the stairs, and then abandoned at the landing where the stairs turned a right angle.

They found Bill in the attic, laying on the floor atop a makeshift bed he'd assembled out of sofa cushions. He was curled up facing the wall beneath the seating alcove where, just a few months ago, there had been a window of his face.

####

(I hope y'all enjoyed!! I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you read the original and are back now to read the edited & updated version, I'd particularly love to hear your thoughts—even setting aside the TBOB edits, I think this new version of Bill's first moments alive is much stronger.

Plus he gets to kill a dude. Good for him.)

[idleglowingpixels]

It's 12am and I'm sitting here debating which fanfic WIP I should work on again q-q

The two Monster High AU ones could honestly be released interchangeably so I could work on either or (I mean, Trapped In The Rain happens after BOTH of these fics in the timeline so it's not like I'm hyperspecific about chronological releases). Though the Clawdeen POV fic takes place a few months before the start of freshman year and the Frankie POV fic starts even further back, but is mainly based on their first week's experiences being in a public high school for the first time, the beginning acts almost like a prologue. Also debating whether or not it should be written in 1st person to emulate Frankie's narrations throughout the G1 films (Also kinda reminds me of Cady's narrations in Mean Girls 2003, it fits the "fish out of water" trope so well).

But the PPG fic is JUST A SMIDGE AWAY FROM THE BEST FREAKING PART FOR ME TO WRITE IN THIS PARTICULAR BATCH as if Chapters 8, 9 and 10 weren't already absolute BANGERS to work on and have at least one scene that made me go "THAT'S THE ONE DUDE I AM COOKING" y'all are not ready cause I'm sure not lol. And I literally have like 2 1/2 chapters left to write before getting to my editing drafts, and I've been dying to share what I've got and finally update the fic after...I don't even wanna know how many months. :'D Definitely over 6 at this point, I am SO SORRY.

The last thing is a super secret 4th thing (and no it's not the potential Miraculous rewrite, that's debatable on whether I'm making it as of right now but we'll see cause I still have enough ideas and interest for it, just wanna get through this long-term WIP first). I'm probably not gonna share it on the blog or my AO3 but that's only because it's a different kind of WIP (also different fandom than any of my previous works) and idk I'll just keep it at that. But I've been working on it 5+ years (even earlier than the first XXY drafts back in 2019) and my LORD do I want to just complete the mfkin first draft that I'm only like 50 scenes away from finishing bhngvfdcfgvbdcx ugh

Also I've been drawing a lot more lately so expect some MH and/or PPG art whenever I complete more than a sketch lol. I LOVED making my little title cover thing for Trapped In The Rain back in October (the perfect excuse to let my shipping brainrot go feral) & sharing my AU version of Stitched In Style Frankie art (which btw idk if I ever mentioned it but my cousin is the GOAT and bought her doll for me as a Christmas gift!!! She's hanging out in-box with my G3 dolls). Having art to go alongside chapter updates for XXY and oneshot uploads for my MH AU is something I have a lot of fun making and it's something I would like to be consistent with moving forward. I will also probably make art covers for Chs. 1-7 of XXY too because I had felt like doing it at the time of uploads but just got too busy with life stuff. Last year was awful for me besides these fics and my blog. :') Also istg I need to make that Instagram account for my art that I share here! Maybe someday, if I do I'll let y'all know.