#like to me it isn't but what do i know

[giulliadella]

Speculative Biology of Euclydeans (and Bill Cipher) part 3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Reproduction and growth

I highly recommend reading the second part before this! This part is the continuation of second part and it talks about Euclydean reproductive system. I separated it because some people find reproductive anatomy NSFW.

As always, this analysis is based on two assumptions:

Before Bill Cipher became a demigod, he was a biological, living organism and so were the rest of his species.

Even after Bill Cipher became a demigod, he still retained some physical characteristics of his biological form.

There will be anatomic diagrams and discussions of pregnancy in this part, so content warning if you're sensitive about those topics.

And without further ado, let's get into it!

Reproductive system

One thing that we know for certain about Euclydeans is that they reproduce sexually. Bill has parents, a mother and a father and that is only possible in species that sexually reproduce. Because we know that we also know that males have testes and females have ovaries. This is because of biological definitions of male and female - a male is an organism that produces a lot of microgametes (small reproductive cells that don't have nutrients to feed the embryo) and a female is an organism that produces far less macrogametes (large reproductive cells that contain nutrients for the embryo). Hermaphrodites produce both types of gametes and some organisms produce neither - those are sexless.

Euclydeans most likely had males and females. Bill understands concept of gender, but also the one of sex. He claims that his species had 14 billion genders, but when talking about sexes, he only uses two: male and female. Now I don't know for sure whether Bill is a biological male, however, most of the insane shit he says points towards it. Whether it is him making inappropriate jokes about knocking up your mother or adopting toxic masculinity traits that humans have and also refusing to possess women all point towards him being a male.

Bill gets extremely uncomfortable when someone wants to touch or measure his sides, especially his "hypotenuse". Bill is an equilateral triangle, so he doesn't have a hypotenuse, but I tend to believe that what he calls hypotenuse is actually his base. Since touching Bill's base makes him incredibly upset and he calls people who do so "creeps", it's fair to conclude that that is where his reproductive organs are located. And it makes sense: in vast majority of animals reproductive system is located on the body side opposite of the brain.

I believe that Euclydeans give live birth. Bill is usually grossed out by humans and when he is, he is very vocal about it. There are only two human body parts that he isn't grossed out by: the brain and the uterus. I believe that's because those parts are similar to their equivalents in Euclydeans. Bill said that he was born, not hatched and he seems uncomfortable around the idea of laying eggs. He is completely comfortable with the idea of a live birth and uteri, so much so that he has actually depicted himself inside a human uterus which is an honor only brain has gotten from him.

This means that Euclydean females probably have a very similar uterus to humans and they give live birth. This also means that the fertilization happens inside the female, so males very likely have some kind of copulatory organ. Copulatory organ is basically a means for a male to deposit his sperm inside the female. In mammals it's called penis, in reptiles a hemipenis and so on. I don't know how would Euclydean copulatory organ look like, but it acts like a hemipenis - it's coiled inside their shell when it's not in use.

Despite having a uterus, Euclydeans are for sure not placental mammals and they definitely don't feed their babies milk. Thanks to Bill asking Ford why he didn't eat Stan while they were in their mom's belly, I have a theory that Euclydeans feed their fetuses via adelphophagy. Also referred to as "intra-uterine cannibalism", adelphophagy basically means that the mother produces a large amount of yolk-rich eggs and deposits them in her uterus. Some of those get fertilized and the others serve as food for her embryo. However, the goal is to nurture just one embryo while the rest will get used as food for it! This is a technique used by some sharks and it fits so well with Euclydeans too, since they, just like sharks and humans give very few births throughout their life - less than 10 and it's almost always to one baby. Adelphophagy is very hard on the mother because she has to produce a huge amount of yolk for her baby to eat, so she will have to have a "recovery period" when she won't be able to get pregnant again.

This also means that Euclydean fetuses have developed teeth and ability to kill and digest their unborn siblings. That is fucked up, but it's normal for them. Hell, human pregnancy could be called "intra-uterine parasitism" because our babies feed on mom's nutrients. And the baby that turns out to be stronger that the other embryos has already passed the natural selection test and is viable to live outside of mom.

Euclydean babies are born with teeth and they are capable of eating the same things that their parents do. They are also born with a very soft shell. Since the mother has to push the baby out of her vagina, just like we do, their babies are super soft and squishy so that they could leave the womb with as little trouble as possible. That super soft exoskeleton is why baby Bill is shown having yellow arms. The shell is as soft as skin and when baby's limbs are retracted into it they can actually use it as skin. Besides, Euclydeans are cold-blooded so babies, who are smaller and thinner than adults and have very little protection might want to keep their limbs inside the shell as a means of keeping warm.

There's one part here about males that I didn't talk about and that's the hat. The hat is a living part of a Euclydean and out of Bill's parents only one is shown having it. Since Bill has it too and he's a male, his father was the one with the hat. But what is the hat? Well, "if it doesn't make sense it's used to attract females" is a saying in biology for a reason. Euclydean girls are seemingly attracted to males who have long and muscular hats. Besides, Bill himself says outright that he has a "seduction hat" and it's just a comically large cylinder.

So Euclydeans are sexually dimorphic species: the males are characterized by having a large growth in a shape of a cylinder hat on top of their head which females lack.

2. Growth and development

Baby Euclydeans are all soft and squishy, but they will harden as they grow. The shell gets more triangular as it hardens. The babies probably have very soft skin on their limbs too and that's why their parents give them shoes to wear to protect their little feet.

Interestingly, Euclydean eyes grow with them which is a rarity among Earth animals.

Also, I am aware that Bill said that he's a preteen, but he's lying. He has adult proportions and a fully developed hat. Hat develops as the male matures, so preteens wouldn't have it. Bill is an adult with emotional maturity of a preteen and he's using that as an excuse for his behavior. He sucks.

Also they aren't born without limbs, I screwed that up, the limbs are inside the shell, that's what I wanted to say, but I'm not English.

One very interesting thing that I noticed is that Bill's juvenile form has two rows of bricks, but his adult form has three. This means that he adds segments as he grows and there's only one way for that to occur - MOLTING!

Like all animals with exoskeleton, Euclydeans molt. Molting is a process of replacing the old, small exoskeleton with a new larger one as the animal grows. Some animals, like millipedes, add extra segments during molting process until they reach adult size. This is the case with Euclydeans.

This is confirmed to me by that little bit about Fiddleford seeing Bill remove his exoskeleton to feed. Removing the exoskeleton to eat would be the worst adaptation ever, not only because removing the exoskeleton takes a lot of time, but also because the animal would be completely unprotected during a very vulnerable time such as feeding. So what I think happened was that Bill was changing his exoskeleton to look all shiny when he comes out of the portal and, since molting is a very energy demanding process, he wanted a snack afterwards. And Fiddleford barged at the worst moment.

The exoskeleton of Euclideans contains their pigments, so they need to wait for it to fully harden until they gain color and the skin becomes invisible under it again. They are soft and vulnerable in this stage. And, considering how Alex Hirsch draws Bill in human form, I headcanon that Bill is a bit chubby, which you can see here XD

But, I know what my freaky fanfic authors need to know: Could Euclydeans and humans have sex?

Well, since Euclydeans are as intelligent or even more intelligent than humans, you can discuss consent. And with that, have fun. There are definitely ways Ford could have fucked that triangle.

@unoriginal-starwalker thank you for your support with this. My degree is burning in hell together with me after being used to write this.

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[florbe-triz]

It's all in the name of peace and love!!

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[teaboot]

do u think physical build is an important part of being security? im 5'5 and think i look very timid, but ive seen some entry level security job listings around me that ive been interested in.

I've only been private security for around five years, so I'm still relatively green compared to my colleagues, but I personally am about 5'3" and I've been doing great!

And again, I'm not incredibly experienced, but if I were to make a hire, I'd be prioritizing a number of things before considering height.

Physically you need to be capable of doing your duties without pain- so if you have chronic pain, foot patrol may not be your bag, but CCTV monitoring might work. If you can't drive, being a site manager may not work, but working door duty somewhere local might be.

Physical presence- in regards to 'looking timid'- is something that you can work on if you want to, but sometimes an unassuming appearance is your advantage.

A "problem demographic" (using HEAVY quotations there) for a lot of places like malls and downtown areas is adult women with trauma, addiction, and mental health issues- they're seen by a lot of clients as "crazy ladies" and treated less like people by the general public, and a good number have very good reason not to trust men ESPECIALLY in uniform, but are more often than not perfectly easy to get along with if you're polite, respectful, and don't come off as a threat or authority figure. Being able to offer menstrual products and having resources around the area you can recommend is good, too.

And if I HAVE to move people out from behind buildings and such, saying "fuck off asshole" like folks imagine is NOT as effective as "Hey, sorry, this area is restricted, but here are some other places that might be okay- I need to do another check in about an hour, so heads up, and the church up the street is doing hot chocolate right now".

Really, if you want to do well in security- at least basic work- I'd say you want to focus on the following:

Wear your uniform and keep it tidy

Show up prepared and on time

Be able to approach strangers and talk to them

Keep a positive, non-agressive attitude, and be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt

Learn deescalation techniques to diffuse conflict

Have a strong handle on your personal emotions and opinions

Kerp calm and rational in an emergency

Learn basic first aid and get certified if you can, it's not technically necessary but I've used that more than I'd like to admit

Keep a strong moral compass

Really, I'd say it boils down to keeping to your sense of ethics, showing up on time, and knowing how to follow orders with nuanced interpretation.

Beyond that, you're golden

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[yuwuta]

you ask yuuta if he wants a bite of your food and when he says yes you offer your plate to him, but he’s just sat there looking at you with his dumb big bambi boy eyes and his mouth slightly open and he will not look away or blink or close his mouth until you lift your fork to his lips to feed him and then he grins like shit’s sweet and hums about how good the food is like nothing happened like he’s not ridiculously attractive. gonna chew on steel

[erinwantstowrite]

Do I look like him?

had a lot of people ask me to make a tiktok for it and i swear i tried but,,, making tiktoks just isn't working for me rn so we're getting still images until i can get my brain to cooperate. anyways!! i am obsessed with chromokopia and when i heard Like Him i ascended into heaven and also cried. and it very much reminded me of LoF

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hope you feel better soon!

I am riddled with ailments, but I stay silly!

[introspectivememories]

im sorry but i choose to believe that tim drake is the most insufferable "my man, my man, my man" girl about bear. he does not shut up about him. steph is cooking smth in the kitchen? oh my man can do that. bear cooks really well. dick triaging some poor victim on an emergency site? oh my man is really good at that. mhmm, bear is on his way to becoming a paramedic. damian building something? oh my man is really good with power tools. have you ever seen him build ikea? it takes him less than an hour. for our anniversary, he built me a coffee table. mhmm isn't he amazing? yeah my man did that. yeah my man, mhmm that's my ma-

[v1p0]

[inkskinned]

i wrote an interactive poem for my girlfriend in 3 parts. she said you need to read it.

go here: take only the final quiz or take all 3. i don't mind. it's sad, though. this is a poem about choice. about fate and mental illness and how love fits inside of all of it. this is a poem about a long dark hallway. mostly this is a poem about mango sushi rolls.

good luck. i love you. despite it all, i'm hopeful.

[hyakunana]

I hate the sewers . jpg

[daily-odile]

AUGH I’d love to see more time looping odile if possible,,,,, how do you think she’d like; “devolve” over each of the acts as compared to Siffrin over time :O

ok im gonna be honest i did like portrait edits months ago and just never finished them. so here you go

act 3:

act 5:

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.