#so the only way i could externalize it is through drawing them

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[ckret2]

Chapter 24 of human Bill Cipher being the Mystery Shack's extremely inconvenient prisoner, featuring: the Pines figuring out a way to chase off Bill's ex-girlfriend... who happens to be a giant eyeball with bat wings.

It kinda goes like this.

(A head's up before we get going: this chapter is a bit more mature than prior ones, so I feel like a warning's in order. There's no sex, and nothing here is erotic or sexy (unless you, too, happen to be attracted to eye-bats), BUT there IS some academic speculation on the logistics of alien sex, and some very filthy-sounding dialogue describing acts that, to humans, aren't sexual at all. Plus some dirty humor and toilet humor. And nothing here is what I'd call billford quite yet, considering Ford still very much hates Bill's guts—but like, he's definitely a little too obsessed with the anatomy of triangles for it to be normal. If any of this is too spicy for you, skip this chapter and come back next one. We'll be starting a new "episode" then.)

####

It was past midnight. In his search for the eye-bat repellant recipe, Ford had flipped through every notebook he'd used during his initial interviews of the residents of Gravity Falls, flipped through them a second time, torn apart half his bookshelves looking for any reporter's notebooks he might have accidentally sorted in with his larger binders, and now he was exhausted, frustrated—and, worst of all, bored out of his mind.

Which made it hard to avoid thinking about more interesting topics.

And for the last hour he'd been unwillingly plagued with the question of how an eyeball and a triangle had a "casual physical thing." 

If that didn't mean sex—and you never knew with aliens—then it was still something close enough to fill the same social/recreational niche. It certainly meant sex on the eye-bat's side, Ford had fully documented the reproductive cycle of eye-bats, that was sorted out—but triangles?

It had to be something that would work in the second dimension. Ford had visited a two-dimensional universe populated by geometric shapes, he knew roughly how their bodies functioned: a shape's perimeter was its external surface—its "skin"—and its internal organs were inside that perimeter. So if Bill was still configured the way he had been in his home dimension, any external reproductive anatomy would have to be somewhere on his perimeter, right? Maybe at one of his corners? Or camouflaged where the seams of his brick pattern reached his edges?

But then if Bill were a normal two-dimensional person, he'd have his eye on the edge of his body, not right in the center of his "internal organs." So he'd been rearranged to some extent. Who knew how the rest of his body worked now? His top hat contained flesh and a skeletal structure; maybe it was a removable reproductive organ that could be passed to a partner, like some cephalopods' detachable tentacles—

Ford flinched as he realized Bill was staring at him.

To aid in his anatomical speculation, Ford had drawn a diagram of Bill in his journal and labeled various points on the triangle that might be concealing reproductive anatomy. He quickly scratched out the drawing's staring eye and slammed his journal shut. 

He'd happily gone thirty years assuming that Bill had no sex life—Bill was an energy being who presented himself as a floating featureless triangle, his hobbies involved cheating at chess and discussing multidimensional transportation, he probably wasn't designed for "physical things," and if he was designed for it then surely he wasn't interested. Ford was not pleased to have his assumptions disputed.

Because the thing was—Ford knew more than any living human about the mating rituals of unicorns, werewolf/mermaid couples, stomach-faced ducks, and tentacled warrior piglets. (Did he ever know about tentacled warrior piglets.) He had the only photos of a gnome mating ball, which he didn't need, because that horrible sight would be forever seared into his long-term memory. He knew the names of twenty obscene acts in siren sign language, and knew how to use his extra fingers to make them extra obscene. This wasn't unfamiliar territory to him. He was curious about how strange, supernatural creatures functioned; and those functions included how the reproductive drive influenced their behaviors; and a living triangle that had escaped from the second dimension was certainly a strange supernatural creature.

But, unfortunately, it was also Bill Cipher. And Ford did not want to think about what Bill did in bed. ... Assuming he used a bed. Really, at this point the only thing Ford knew was that Bill's only admitted partner was capable of flight. Maybe he just hovered while he—

Ford slammed his journal shut again to stop himself from scribbling down more theories, then stuffed the journal in a desk drawer for good measure. Did normal people think like this? He had no idea. He didn't even know who he could ask.

Enough of this. Back to searching for that eye-bat repellant recipe, and this time he wasn't stopping until he found it.

####

Like a vast eye in an upside-down triangle, the circular center of the portal lit up so bright blue it was almost white. The four energy vents glowed in sympathy. A rainbow constellation lit up in twirling patterns around the central light.

Bill watched with bated breath, a second-dimensional shadow waiting for his door to the third dimension to open. The cavern walls shook; the ground quaked and rumbled ominously; Bill didn't care. The portal was stable, the lab was somebody else's problem, and Bill had a party to get to.

The steel beams supporting the cavern rolled like a wave, and Bill's stomach roiled with them. They weren't supposed to be able to move like that. But he knew what he was doing, the portal was stable, he was not here to destroy this world, he'd come here to save it, whether it wanted to be saved or not—

The whole world undulated. Bedrock and steel were not built to undulate. Bill bobbed on the energy wave like a toy boat on a choppy sea; but the steel shattered, rock crumbled, shrapnel and rubble sprayed out. There was a peal of deafening thunder as the world below him cracked apart.

####

Bill woke with a gasp.

Oh. Right. Dreams.

Dream diary. With a groan, he sat up, checked to make sure no humans were coming by in the next few minutes, and pulled his stolen journal out of its hiding place.

The guide on lucid dreaming had recommended writing down his dreams in full, vivid, rich detail—any people or scenes or events, anything he could detect with his five (?) senses, as much as he could recall.

He drew a portal—gray inverted triangle with a center circle, four circles around the triangle, all five circles filled in yellow green—and then a yellow green line trailing out of the portal's side that grew progressively wigglier like a seismogram. He labeled his doodle, "this." He'd remember the rest.

After a moment of thought, he wrote, "Don't remember if I was a human or a shape. My organs were doing things a shape's shouldn't." (He wrote "human" as 人; there was no translation for the word in the language Bill wrote in. The two angled strokes stood out in Bill's rows of Morse-like dots and dashes.) "Being around so many humans who are CONVINCED I'm trying to destroy their world must be getting to me. Sixer pitched another hissy-fit about the portal yesterday. Enduring all that negative talk can't be healthy for me. I know I'm just helping their boring little planet, but maybe their accusations are getting lodged in this stupid brain's subconscious."

Maybe he should meditate a bit—go think positive thoughts, drown out the mortal voices that insisted they knew his plans better than he did. He'd had enough dreaming for one night, anyway.

Beneath the note to himself, Bill added in English: "Everything would have been fine if you'd just let me finish, Fordsy." If the humans ever did find this journal, Bill was determined to get the last word in.

Then he stowed away the stolen journal and shuffled downstairs.

He wondered how much was left of Ford's portal.

####

Old man bladder. Stan dragged himself out of bed. The other guest room bed was empty. Stan hoped Ford was sleeping in his study—he'd mentioned once he kept a cot down there. Better than pulling another all nighter studying alien sorcery or whatever.

He skipped his glasses, groped his way to the downstairs bathroom, and, yawning, lined up with the toilet.

The toilet said, "Pretty forward of you, Stanley."

Stan screamed.

He stumbled backwards out of the bathroom and hit the wall. Bill flipped on the light and leaned out to grin at him. "Careful! You're due for a broken hip any day now."

"BILL! What are DOING!"

"Trying not to get urinated on."

"Jsh—shut up!" It had dawned on Stan that if he could hear Bill without his hearing aids, then half the house probably could too. He hoped no one had overheard that. "Why are you sitting on the toilet in the dark!"

"It's a free country, Stanley Pines."

Stan raised a fist. "GET OUT!"

Bill bolted from the bathroom like a scared rabbit, then caught himself, rolled his eyes, and raised his hands over his head in mock surrender. "You could have asked nicely!"

Pointing at Bill as he retreated, Stan added, "And stop being so darn creepy! Lurking in the dark and sneaking around silently all the time, like a... some kind of—burglar ninja assassin!"

Bill turned to shout back, "What, do you expect me to make a peace cry every time I walk around? Make sure I can't sneak up and stab you in the back?"

Stan had caught about half of that. "YEAH, smart guy! It might help!"

Bill flung his hands out in defeat as he rounded the corner.

Stan finished his business, went back to bed, and glared angrily at the ceiling another ten minutes.

####

It had taken half the night, but at last Ford had disassembled the filing cabinet and found a few notebooks that had gotten stuck behind the bottom drawer, including the one with Old Lady Sprott's eye-bat repellant recipe. Ford copied it down, left a list of ingredients on the gift shop cash register for Soos, and finally dragged himself into the house to sleep.

And paused in the entryway.

Bill was sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window; Ford had seen him like this before. Usually, he could make himself walk by.

But he couldn't tonight. Maybe it was yesterday's conversation still weighing on his mind, the loose ends they hadn't tied up tangling around his throat. "What are you doing up?"

Bill's voice was inappropriately calm: "Dying."

Ford's guard went up. "Do you... Literally or metaphorically?"

"Literally," Bill said. "Hey—how many decades do you think this body's got? Probably not even a century, right?"

Ford's guard went down. Just moping. But it was an interesting question, one he'd put some thought into himself—what age had Bill's body been made at? How had his body been made that age? How long would the body last? Ford had wondered whether studying Bill's freshly-made-but-already-adult body might reveal anything medically useful about how aging affected the human body; but the odds of convincing Bill to participate in any medical studies—much less finding someone to conduct the study who believed their story—were nonexistent.

Ford said, "At a loose guess, I'd put you around... fifty, maybe? A very spry fifty." Bill's hair was a shockingly vivid gold, not a hint of gray, and when he was in a good mood Bill bounced about with an enviable lack of joint pain; but Ford had seen faint, delicate creases around his mouth and eyes that spoke to age. And the look in his eyes... Ford hated the phrase "old soul"—he'd been called that by some of his school teachers, and it only made him feel the distance between himself and his age peers all the more strongly—but with Bill, it was uncannily fitting. His eyes aged his whole face.

"You think this thing looks fifty? Wow." Bill took a deep drink from a cider can. "Shooting Star's best guess was half that. Thanks for shoving me twenty-five years closer to the grave."

Half that? When Ford had been a child, he'd had a harder time guessing adults' ages, and he supposed Mabel might be the same; but it was difficult to mistake a 50-year-old for a 25-year-old. Maybe there was something else going on. He'd have to ask her later. "With exercise, a healthy diet, and a little luck, you could still live another fifty." Ford nodded at the two empty cider cans already sitting on the table. "With your current drinking habits, I'll give you five."

Bill cackled—loudly enough to make Ford tense up, afraid someone would catch them talking. "Cheers!" Bill finished off the can and slammed it down with the others. "Ugh. Finite lifespans. Awful."

"Welcome to being human," Ford said dryly.

"'Welcome to death row,'" Bill said. "Ha! What'm I doing, worrying about decades. Let's be real, I don't even need to worry about the next five years. If I haven't found a way out of this body before then..."

Bill left the thought unfinished. An uneasy weight formed low in Ford's stomach.

"Ah, whatever. Like you'd let me live that long. Right, Sixer?" Bill pushed himself up unsteadily, keeping his balance first with a hand on the back of the chair, and then on Ford's (suddenly very tense) shoulder as he passed him. "I'm going back to sleep before that last can kicks in."

The way Bill was walking, Ford wasn't sure he'd make it up the stairs. "Why don't you sleep on the folding bed in the living room?"

"No window," Bill said. "I've g—" (He stumbled on the stairs.) "I've gotta see the stars."

Of course he did. When Bill said it that way, it was so obvious Ford didn't know why he hadn't realized that himself. Where else could Bill sleep but as close to the sky as possible?

Ford listened as Bill stumbled his way upstairs, creaked across the floorboards, and collapsed onto his makeshift bed.

Ford had thirty years left. Exactly thirty years. Don't have a heart attack, you're not ninety-two yet! Ninety-two was a good, old age. Older than his father had been. But thirty years felt too soon. And yet it felt fitting, somehow, for his life to be divided so neatly in thirds.

If Bill lived another fifty years in this body, and Ford lived thirty, who would stand guard over him? Would he and Stan have to pass that burden on to their gniece and gnephew? Or to Soos and Melody?

Why was he wondering—what made him think they wouldn't find a way to kill Bill before then? What made him think he wouldn't kill Bill before the end of this very summer?

What made him so sure Bill hadn't been lying about when Ford would die? Thirty years felt too soon; but ninety-two felt flatteringly optimistic.

Ford sighed, and picked up the cider cans to recycle.

He wondered whether Bill—hiding from his ex, fretting about death, sleeping on his enemies' floor—regretted how he'd spent his life.

####

Bill's second entry in his dream diary started, "Wet dream about Iris."

He filled most of a page with an extremely graphic summary before he sighed in frustration, stowed the journal away, and stared at the ceiling as dawn crept in. Well. Terrific. He was pretty intimately familiar with how humans coupled, but he didn't have much practice with the solo act. Plus the humans would give him heck if they caught him at it. He'd just have to suffer.

So here he was, all riled up and nowhere to go.

Who else could he make miserable?

####

Stan was startled awake by a heavy pounding on his door.

"Heeey Fisherman!" Somehow, Bill's voice was even more grating at dawn. He rattled the door several more times. "Just passing by! Wanted to let you know! Here I am! Right here!"

Did that demon ever sleep? And, follow up question, could Stan knock him out for a few hours?

Ford—who must have come up after Stan went back to bed—groaned and muttered something.

Ford wasn't nearly as loud as Bill. Stan reluctantly sat up and put a hearing aid in. "What?"

"What the devil is he up to now."

"No idea," Stan lied. "Go yell at him about it, he listens to you."

Ford sighed, but got up and left the room.

A minute later, Stan heard Bill exclaim, "I can't win with you people!"

He smirked.

####

The kitchen reeked that morning. When Stan came in for breakfast, the window was open, a fan in the entryway futilely directed fresh air into the kitchen and a fan on the kitchen table directed the noxious fumes outside, there were bags of groceries on the counter—he noticed hot sauce, peppers, cheap perfume, and an entire bag of raw onions—and Ford was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of vile-smelling brown liquid. The moment he saw Stan, Ford put him to work stirring the pot so Ford could start dicing onions.

While they worked, Ford explained the situation with the eye-bat harassing the tourists and the solution he'd hit on to drive it away. Soos had collected the necessary ingredients this morning, but couldn't help cook because he was busy finding a way to block the bottomless pit—

####

Outside, Soos scooted a trampoline up to the pit, carefully lined it up with the edge—the trampoline and the pit had nearly the same diameter—and shoved it in. It plummeted into the dark. After a short wait, Soos chucked a baseball down the pit. It disappeared, then bounced back up.

Soos pumped his fist triumphantly. "Aced it."

####

—so, Ford was working on the repellant, and in the interest of public safety and the greater good he was drafting Stan into helping too.

Which Stan supposed he couldn't argue with, but considering the smell he would've preferred dicing the onions. "Is all this really necessary for one eye-bat? I usually just swat 'em off with a tennis racket."

"This eye-bat happens to be large enough to carry off a first-grader," Ford said. "And Bill claims it's his ex-girlfriend, so I don't want to risk them meeting."

"Huh." Weird thing to date, but then Stan didn't know what he did expect a triangle demon to date. "Somehow I figured he was tangled up in this."

Ford laughed ruefully.

After a moment of chopping and stirring, Ford said, "Speaking of Bill—he claims that you ordered him to announce his presence? And that you tried to pee on him."

"I did not and he's a dirty liar! He made the whole thing up!" Stan didn't expect Ford to believe him. Stan also didn't expect Ford to believe Bill. Ford knew they were both liars. What Stan expected was for Ford to side with the person he liked best.

"Uh huh." Ford didn't question Stan further. Ha. Pines solidarity.

Even though he'd already won, Stan went on: "All I did was mention how quiet he is! I can never tell where he's lurking. Sometimes I almost forget he's here." In Stan's mind, Bill had been rapidly demoted  from "active existential threat" to "annoying houseguest who blends in with the shadows." Watching him help Mabel cut pretty pictures from fashion magazines with plastic safety scissors drained away most of his intimidation factor.

Ford gave Stan a funny look. "Really? I can't forget he's here for a second. Sometimes I swear I can tell where he's been in the house—like a cold spot left by a ghost."

Stan tried to figure out how to ask whether that was a reaction to decades on the run feeling like hunted prey—which Stan knew how to cope with—or a lingering magical side effect of Ford and Bill's alien possession deal—which Stan did not. Then Ford added, "It's probably because I hear him bumping into the furniture all the time."

"Oh. Yeah. That's probably it. You've got better hearing than me." Case closed. Stan turned back to the stove—

A deafening buzz made them both start. Stan splashed boiling brown stink across the stovetop. "What—!"

Standing in the doorway with a kazoo, Bill said, "How's that, Stanley? Do you like that better?!"

"YOU!" Stan flung the stirring spoon to the floor.

Bill bolted from the room with Stan in hot pursuit. "Whoa! Mercy! Truce! You can have the kazoo! It's not even mine, I'm just holding it for a fr— Ow ow OW ow—"

Stan hauled Bill in by the back of the neck and didn't let go until he was in the middle of the kitchen. He pointed at the spoon, then pointed at the pot. "Pick it up. Get stirring." He grabbed another knife and joined Ford chopping onions. Whew, what a relief.

Bill gave Stan a perplexed look, but picked up the spoon, gave the pot an experimental sniff, and got stirring. He didn't even wince at the smell. "Is this the gnome wizz? What is this, punishment for not letting you use me as a urinal?"

"Whatsamatter, I thought you were the one who thinks pee belongs in the kitchen."

"You're both too old for toilet humor," Ford snapped. "Bill, this problem is your fault, the least you can do is help prepare the spray, and you're not getting a knife, so you're on pot stirring duty. Deal with it."

Bill rolled his eyes dramatically. (At the moment, they were both uncovered; but one was already half squinted shut against the morning light.) "Fine, but only because I like hanging out with you."

Ford scoffed.

"And I don't see how this is my fault just because we happened to date. It's not like I invited her over," Bill went on. "If anything, you should be grateful she's my ex, or else I wouldn't be helping you chase her away—"

"Hey, that's what I wanna know about this," Stan said. He gestured toward the window; the ex in question was currently circling above the gift shop entrance, like a vulture waiting for something to die. "Exactly how do you 'date' an eye-bat? Just—how does that work?"

"Well, it depends on the eye-bat, doesn't it," Bill said, a touch patronizing. "They don't all have the same tastes, you know. But she happens to like art films and water parks. Easy date."

"I'm not talking about that! You're telling us you slept with an eyeball with bat wings—right? That's what we're talking about, right?" From the corner of his eye, Stan saw Ford giving him a sharp look, but he didn't tell Stan to stop. Yeah, the nerd was curious, too.

"Yes, Stanley." Bill's condescension was almost more overpowering than the kitchen's stench. "That's what we're talking about. I 'slept' with an eyeball with bat wings." He exaggerated the finger quotes around the euphemism. "Any more prying you want to do into my personal life, or...?"

"You look at that freak out there and think it's appealing?"

Bill stopped stirring and squinted out the window. Flatly, he said, "Yep. She's still drop dead gorgeous. Thanks for asking." 

"How do you even know that's a she! How can you tell a girl eye from a boy eye?"

Ford said, "Technically, Stanley, all eye-bats are female." He held up an onion and used his knife tip to gesture at it like it was a model eyeball, "They're parthenogenetic parasites that reproduce by attacking other species' faces and depositing egg-bearing spores on their eyeballs, which swim to the tear ducts to begin incubating. Over the next few weeks, the infected eyeball grows wings and develops its own nervous system while the host slowly goes blind in one eye, until the new eye-bat is mature enough to emerge from the host's socket and seek out her mother's colony—"

Bill let out a strangled scream. "Enough!"

Stan and Ford stared at him.

"Would you stop talking about eye-bat sex?! I'm already riled up! I don't need help making it worse!"

He slammed the stirring spoon down and started pacing. "I'm losing my mind. Do you know what it's like to be randy for something you don't have the right body for?!" He gave them a pleading, slightly crazed look. "I need to feel her pupil contracting against mine. I'd lick her hot, salty tears off her sclera. I'd bite deep enough to taste her retina. I want to look like I've got pinkeye from all the bat spores coating my face. I'd give my right eye just to have one of her wings fingering my eyelid again—but if I cave and go that far I know I'd lose my head and give her the left one too, and then I've screwed up, because STUPID HUMANS BODIES can't regrow their STUPID EYEBALLS—"

He kicked the wall so hard he lost his balance and stumbled back into the stove. "Ow. I'm going insane. I can't take it. I need to kill somebody. I need to set something on fire."

Stan and Ford were petrified. Stan's jaw had dropped.

Bill was panting from the exertion of his outburst, arms trembling, face flushed. His shoulders slumped. The picture of a broken man, he said, "I'd do anything to rim her optic nerve again."

Ford let out a strangled noise.

Bill took several deep breaths. He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry! Wow. That was... I think the fumes are getting to me." He shook his head. "The fumes and the hormones. Human hormones. You know, your species has very insistent..." He gestured vaguely toward the doorway. "I'm—think I should lay down."

Stan and Ford nodded. Bill trudged from the room. A few seconds later, Stan heard springs creak as Bill flopped his full weight on the living room sofa.

Stan and Ford exchanged a look. Stan said, "I shouldn't have asked about..."

"You shouldn't have asked."

"You should have skipped the science lesson."

"I should have."

They lapsed into silence. After a moment, Ford stood up to take over stirring the pot.

Stan resumed chopping onions. "Say, d'you think he staged all that to get out of stirring?"

Ford didn't reply.

"Sixer?" Stan glanced up.

Ford had turned away from the stove, and was staring at nothing with a faraway, troubled look. It was the look he got when he'd just latched on to some mystery that would haunt him until he solved it.

"Ford—?"

Ford slapped down the spoon and stomped into the living room. "But you hate losing your eyeball! So how did you two— I mean—! The spores—?"

"Incompatible biology." Bill's voice sounded muffled. "It's why we never got serious. She wants kids and my tear ducts can't incubate wings."

"Ah! Of course. That makes perfect sense." Ford returned to the stove with a look of triumph.

Stan didn't know how Ford had recovered from that fast enough to ask follow-up questions. Weird nerd. Stan shook his head but said nothing.

####

In Ford's journal, he scratched out most of his speculation about the anatomy of Bill's species, scribbled over the diagram, and added, "I severely underestimated how much his eye is involved."

####

At one point, during Weirdmageddon, when Bill had been torturing Ford for information, Ford had spat in his eye. Bill had licked it off. He'd seemed eerily undisturbed.

Ford would probably wonder how Bill had interpreted that act for the rest of his life.

####

Outside, dressed in a homemade hazmat suit consisting of painter's coveralls and a scuba mask, Soos faced off against the eye-bat, a spray bottle strapped to each hip like a cowboy's revolvers. Dipper and Mabel stood behind him, armed with a rake and a golf club, wearing a bicycle helmet and a football helmet with tree branches taped on. The eye-bat stared them down warily.

Leaning on his elbows over the kitchen table so he could stare out the window, Bill said, "Bet you a hundred bucks she steals Questiony's hat."

Stan snorted. "I'm not taking that bet. You don't have any money."

Bill grunted and turned back to the window, just in time to see the eye-bat dive for Soos's face. Soos whipped out one of the spray bottles, dropped it, ducked down to retrieve it just as she swooped past where his head used to be, and lifted it in time to spray the eye-bat when she circled back to attack him again. She reeled off screeching, eye watering, pupil contracting. Bill winced in sympathy. Poor gal. And she didn't even have an eyelid for protection. But, hey—better for her to suffer than for Bill to risk getting caught in this body. He'd take someone else's pain over his own embarrassment any day.

"It seems to be working the same as it does on any other eye-bat," Ford said. "Good. Once she's gone, Soos and the kids can spray the rest on the roof. That should drive her off while keeping the worst of the scent away from the tourists."

Streaming tears, the eye-bat dove at the kids. They yelled in alarm. Dipper threw his rake at her and missed. Bill flipped up his eyepatch to squint at the battle with both eyes.

"What, do you see something?" Stan asked.

"Just appreciating her sphericality." Bill sighed wistfully. "That spray's gotta be excruciatingly painful—but, I've never seen her that wet before. Sure, we've fooled around with a little hot sauce a few times, but even then—"

"I'm sorry I asked."

Outside, Soos shouted, "Hey! My hat! Give that back!"

Bill wordlessly held a hand out toward Stan.

Stan smacked it away. "Nyeh."

As the eye-bat retreated toward the forest, Ford sighed in relief. "She's gone. It worked."

"You sound surprised," Bill said.

"Frankly, I can't believe that you gave us accurate information on how to get rid of her."

"What! You wound me! Why would I lie about that?"

"To trick us into doing something that strengthens her? To arrange an opportunity to meet her?" Ford suggested. "After all, as one of your Henchmaniacs, she could have helped you escape."

Bill's blood ran cold.

She could have helped him escape. SHE COULD HAVE HELPED HIM ESCAPE! He'd been so worried about not looking stupid or losing his eyes, when all this time—! He could have signaled Iris from the window, and—and the bottomless pit was right there, she could have carried a message to the gang—at the very least, she could probably open doors for him—and instead he just—when he could have—

He watched in despair as Iris's pretty little optic nerve vanished behind the trees.

No, Bill decided—no, getting her help was a terrible plan. If it was a good plan, he would have done it; so it was terrible. He had a better plan. What was his better plan?

"Come on, you think I need her? I've got all the pals I need right here—whether you're ready to admit it or not." He elbowed Ford. Bill had decided he'd wheedle Ford back over to his side, and he would. His survival depended on it. Now more than ever. "I've got a way out, don't worry about that—it's only a matter of time—and she's not part of the plan."

Ford scoffed. "Really. Last night you were moaning about being on death row."

"Wh—Hey! That was..." Not fair. He scrambled to revise his story.

"You're lying about something," Ford said. "If it wasn't how to get rid of her, then it was why you wanted to get rid of her. For all we know, maybe she wants you dead as much as we do."

"Yeah," Stan said, "the 'girlfriend' story sounds crazy enough to be true, but you seem like the kind of guy who has a string of exes who'd love to kill you." (He did, as it happened, but it wasn't his fault he kept falling for petty jealous psychos who hated seeing him thrive.)

Ford said, "If she hadn't been a danger to the tourists, perhaps I should have invited her in to talk."

Unbelievable. Even when Bill did exactly what he was supposed to, he was still the bad guy. "Fine, she was a notorious black widow and you saved my life, happy? Do you like that story better? I made it up just for you." He jabbed a finger in Ford's shoulder. "You know what your problem is? You're too paranoid. You can't trust anything anybody says. You'll only hurt yourself like that—"

Ford shoved Bill's hand away and stepped out of poking range. "I spent years unlearning the paranoia you gave me. And when I finished, do you know what I figured out, Bill? All along, there was only one person I shouldn't have trusted: you."

It stung, but only in a distant, impersonal way; like a hard slap on a numb cheek. Bill turned to give Ford a sour look. "At the lengths you take it to, I could tell you the sky is blue and you'd have to check."

Ford's gaze automatically flickered toward the window.

"Ha!" Bill angrily shoved the table against the wall as he stood up. "Thanks for taking care of my pest problem, boys." He stormed upstairs, flipping his hood up as he went. Ingrates.

####

The view out the attic window was more interesting than usual, mainly because there were three humans traipsing around on the roof spraying eye-bat repellant. From time to time Mabel came by to make funny faces at Bill through the glass; he did his best to one-up them. Once, Soos nearly fell off the roof and died; Bill hadn't laughed that hard since he was murdered.

Their return indoors was heralded by Mabel shouting, "Dibs on the shower!" and Dipper replying, "I take shorter showers, let me go first!" They pounded up the stairs. Mabel tried to take them two at a time, tripped near the top, and by the time she recovered Dipper was already in the bathroom. She groaned. "Augh! Not fair! I don't want to smell like onions and gnome pee!"

"Neither do I! I need it more, I haven't showered in two weeks!"

Bill wondered why Dipper got to go so long between showers without getting dumped in a cold tub in his sleep. (He knew why.)

Bill whistled to catch Mabel's attention. "Consolation prize." He waved a cheap perfume bottle toward Mabel. "We had leftovers after mixing the repellant. It smells like strawberry candy."

"You're my hero." Mabel took the bottle and sprayed it all over herself, in her hair, and under her sweater. "You need a shower too, you know."

"Sure, but until Dolores fumigates the kitchen I'll just blend into the background stink. I can put it off til tomorrow without anyone complaining."

"You're grossss." Mabel emphasized the hiss by poking Bill's arm. "Once I'm clean, I'm not talking to you until you've showered too."

"I'll be devastated."

"Those are my terms!" She kicked aside Bill's cushion-bed so she could sit under the window without stinking the cushions up, and settled back to wait for the bathroom. After a (very short) companionable silence, Mabel said, "It's too bad we had to chase off your ex. I can see why you like her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Can you?"

"Iris was so graceful!" Mabel said. "And murderous, but mostly graceful. Like an evil swan."

Bill laughed. "Yeah! Yeah, she is. Floats like a dream. If you think she's graceful in the air, you oughta see her in the pool. She's the only person I know who can make a cannonball look elegant."

Mabel gave him a sly grin.

"What?"

"Look at you. Yooou still like heeer." Mabel propped her elbows on the edge of the window seat and balanced her chin in her hands. "How did you meet Iris?"

For the last couple of days, almost everyone in the house had talked about Bill's ex like she was some kind of malevolent creature, rather than a person. He was used to outsiders talking about his friends that way—heck, most of his friends were malevolent creatures—but it grated all the same. (He missed home.) Just hearing Mabel call Iris by her name was a breath of fresh air. No one else had even asked if she had a name.

"I met her at a party," Bill said. "I'd just gotten a piano and was showing off, and she came by to ask about Earth music. She wasn't in my crew then—but the party was open invite, and everyone in that corner of the Nightmare Realm knew that if you wanted info on Earth, you came to Bill Cipher. So, we talked about waltzes and tarantellas, I played a little Beethoven, we hit things off..."

They talked until the bathroom was free and Mabel went to shower. Sweet kid. Hopeless romantic, though.

When Bill got out of this place, he was gonna find the first boy who would break her heart and kill him before they could meet. It was the least he could do for her.

####

The third entry in Bill's dream diary: "Shooting Star's cartoon is getting to me. I dreamed about the wolf and the cat arguing over who had to host someone's birthday party. The wolf refused to let guests into his enormous mansion, but the cat's house was burning down. They asked me how to resolve this. I told them the cat should execute the wolf as punishment for his inhospitality, take over his mansion, and wear his skin as the party host. The animals were so in awe of my wisdom that I was deified as god of the jungle."

That was not what he'd dreamed. The animals were so horrified at his suggestion that they'd tied him to a stake and forced him to watch as they threw the cat into the flames of her own house. He couldn't remember whether he'd dreamed that he was a triangle or a human.

He preferred his version. Once he'd regained control over his dreams, he could replay this one and make it end properly.

He'd get the hang of this in no time.

####

(You're legally required to tell me if you had a reaction to this one. Even if it's horror. Especially if it's horror.)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Japan is Winning on Kisses & Other Alternate Realities

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

March 2024 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

Two Worlds (Thurs IQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - It would be great if we got the alternative romance with dead Kram from Tai’s perspective (JBL style.) Still I like this show. It’s a little bit like I Feel You Linger in the Air only with a love triangle. And while I'm not a fan of triangles as a general rule, I don’t mind it here because the set up is clever. Wayu and  ao are fun sides too. It sure is moving very quickly, which I like. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. But that’s normal for me with this kind of Thai drama. 

Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 4 of 8 - They are extremely sappy boyfriends. I love that mom has a secret gf. Could we please have more of them? The love triangle sides are ridiculous, but I do like that it’s all out in the open. I also like they are actually addressing the complicated parental dynamics of owning a sex club. Honestly, I think Khem should have to be a host too. Learn him the right way, girl!

City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 9 of 12 - It’s good, I like the fallout and them actually having to deal with crazy fans and past relationships. They’re so good at communicating it’s kind of a pleasure to watch them suffer through external pressures, because I have faith that they can make it through.

To Be Continued (Thai C3 Thailand grey) ep 6 of 8 - They are such cute puppy dads and so clearly meant to be together, the fact that they aren’t is just frustrating. The fight thing was stupid. And not a whole lot happened... plus singing. I’m getting fatigued with this one. 

1000 Years Old ep 7 of 12 - Did I miss something happening, or did nothing happen? 

Kiseki Chapter 2 (Sun iQIYI) ep 2 of 6 - It’s so boring, there’s so much guitar playing, and it got weirdly voyeuristic (in a very much not sexy way). I’m totally out. DNF

Close Friend Season 3: Soju Bomb! (Weds iQIYI) ep 3 of 6 - I can’t tell if this is trying to be a BL Romancing the Stone, or a BL Hangover, or both. The problem with situational comedy is it must be both situational and comedic, not just option one. The problem with calling something BL, is that it must be BL. This show got 1 of 3 claims correct. 33% is not a passing grade. DNF 

Honestly, it's the HANDS with these two. They do beautiful beautiful things with their hands. If you're one of those hands-obsessed BLabies you should be watching LIBTSTA!

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues Youku YouTube & Viki) ep 6 of 11 - So the worst finally happened. The mountain of pain has fallen down upon us. And now, hopefully in the second half things get better for our boys. But what a rough ride. Normally, this is not my style of BL, but everyone is doing such a gorgeous job with it, I can’t fault it… except that it hurts. The red thread symbolism was elegantly done. I’d like to hope we get a reunion in the next one, but knowing this style of series they’re gonna draw it out. There's gonna be a more pain first.

Love is Better the Second Time Around AKA Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 4 of 6 - Those fuck me puppy dog eyes were perfectly executed. I would not have been able to resist either. Gosh they are so damn cute. This is a great show.

Jazz for Two (Korea Gaga/grey) eps 1-2 of 8 - This comes from the Shoulder to Cry On team so I'm scared, but this one is all actors* not idols so maybe they'll be braver. Boy howdy does it have a fantastic opening sequence. Also the lead is fucking adorable. Mr Broody McBroodypants is cute too. Korea sure loves “pretty but broken.” On the JBL end of the spectrum, is everyone in love with their siblings? That’s weird. The dining room scene was painful. All in all, it's good, I'm intrigued. Let's see how you go little show.

I stand absolutely corrected the lead is a member of NEWKIDD (in my defense I'd never heard of them until Build Up last month). I did recognize him from To My Star because at the time I thought he was too pretty to be only a side character.

AntiReset (Taiwan Fri Viki/Gaga) ep 10 fin - Again there was overuse of previous footage and maudlin navel-gazing grief over something we knew was going to happen. So I didn’t really feel much emotional connection to the drama. 7 year time gap.? t was a cute reunion but the moral quandary never really got resolved. I don’t know how to rate this, I’m not sure I will ever watch it again, so that is a big mark against it.

There’s nothing objectively wrong with this BL except how upsetting it is because of the foundational pygmalion story - grown man falls in love with an android who is basically both his slave and, by maturity level, a child. Yet that premise is crystal clear from the get go, so we watch it eyes open. The actors are cute, the romance sweet, the physical chemistry on point (of course, it’s Taiwan) and yet I was left ultimately unsettled by the concept, content, and plot. 7/10 

My Strawberry Film (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 7 of 8 - I'm so ready for this to be over, and for Gaga to have something good on. Soon please?

It's done, ready to binge, but I suck

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps

It's airing but...

Graduation Countdown (Taiwan YouTube) - It's too much to ask me to keep up with 2 minute verticals, I don't have that kind of TikTok endurance training. Waiting to binge.

A Secretly Love (Thai Sat WeTV grey) 10 eps - I watched the first ep but grey is too much work for this inferior of a show. I may pick up and binge if it gets distribution but for now, it gets a DNF from me. KimCop might have held this crap together but Kim without Cop? No thank you.

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

Tangential to the genre

There has been the occasional discussion on this topic here in this little corner of tumblr so I thought there might be a few intersted in this podcast: AmericanThaiGuy Ron Weaver on the Complicated Issue of Racism in Thailand (The Bangkok Podcast)

Thailand passed its Marriage Equality bill through the lower house. It's expected to pass the high house and get signed by the King, but that hasn't quite happened yet.

And MaxTul dropped a photo shoot.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting Soon

3/31 Only Boo! (Thai GMMTV YouTube) 12 eps - New main couple for GMMTV in an idol romance about a boy who dances good and a food stand vendor. Other side of the tracks grumpy/sunshine pair who fall deeply in love but, of course, baby boy idol can't date. Boyband but from GMMTV? Control your singing and I'm game.

3/31 The Next Prince (Thai ????) 12 eps - trailer. ZeeNew in a fantasy/historical set in a palace where Zee plays a knight and Nu a prince - YES PLEASE. (Apparently this is just the pilot, not the start of the actual show, see comments.)

4/1 Love is like a Cat (Korea ????) 12 eps - This completed filming Aug 2022(!) which means there have been serious problems with post-production. This is another of Silkwood's Korean+Thai colab projects. Mew Suppasit plays a rookie film star, called the Cat Prince (for his cold arrogance) who goes up against a charismatic puppyish animal daycare director (JM of JUST B). There is a side romance (love triangle?) with a veterinarian. Geonu of JUST B is also in the cast. Dual languages.

Hum, trash-watch-a-licious?

4/3 We Are (Thai GMMTV YouTube iQIYI) 12 eps - University ensemble BL featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawinPoon - basically the good kind of messy gay friendship group (so more My Engineer and less Only Friends). Looks a bit like the Kiss series but everyone is queer. I'm IN!

4/11 Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan ????) 10 eps - Kindly Ryota goes off to uni only to find his new roommate is his childhood bestie, Kazuhito. Kazuhito doesn’t have a girlfriend and Ryota tries to help him figure out why, they fall in love along the way. Same director as Old Fashion Cupcake.

4/11 Gray Shelter AKA Gray Currents (Korea ????) 4 eps - SooHyuk is only just surviving and reunites with YoonDae, an old friend. They end up living together. One of the leads is played by Choco of Choco Milk Shake.

4/18 At 25:00, in Alaska AKA 25 Ji, Akasaka de (Japan Gaga - may not be global) 10 eps - Yuki lands his first starring role in a BL drama alongside superstar Asami (previously his senior at uni). Said superstar suggests they form a sham relationship until filming concludes. As they actually begin to fall in love, the spotlight begins to burn.

Seriously? You're killing me with these titles, boys.

4/26 My Stand-In (Thai iQIYI) 12 eps - adaptation of Chinese novel "Professional Body Double" by Shui Qiang Cheng. Stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please) directed by the same team as KP (not a recommendation IMHO - my biggest criticism of that show was the clashing directing styles). This one looks well complicated, lemme try: Joe is a stuntman for famous actor Tong. Joe falls in love with Ming but Ming sees Joe as nothing more than a Tong-replacement. After learning this horrible truth, Joe dies. Joe then wakes up in the body of another man also named Joe. He manages to rebuild the same life as before—with the same people eventually re-meeting Ming. Ming wants Joe back but Joe doesn't understand why. But Ming seems to know what's going on and wants to give him some kind of explanation.

I'm exhausted just trying to describe the plot.

Knock-Knock Boys (Thai WeTV) - 4 college friends conspire to help their friend lose his virginity. Familiar faces like Seng (yes, Billy's previous partner) and Best, news here.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

NOTE: It looks like one of my personal favorites of last year Unintentional Love Story is getting a spin off!

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Just these two, in my head, rent free. Thanks Japan!

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are too much work.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy. (With so many tags when does a weekly tumblr post become a newsletter? That is this week's philosophical question...)

[whenmemorydies]

Preliminary thoughts on The Bear, race, power and privilege

I’m a non-Black woman of colour who has spent all of my life in the west…so I’ve consumed a lot of television media that is produced by and for the white gaze. The most obvious way that gaze plays out is when people of colour are non-existent in a cast, or when they are included, are tokenistic, bit players.

A more insidious manifestation is where POC are cast to play parts that could just as easily be played by white folks: characters that have no interiority or external relationships related to their cultural identities, wider communities or individual or collective histories (for example, Mindy in The Mindy Project for most of its run, or the characters of colour in Season 1 of Bridgerton).

I've had some thoughts about how The Bear (thankfully) avoids tokenistic and "colour-blind" representation. I also have some thoughts about how the show models meaningful allyship. I'm so keen to discuss this with folks and hear what others think about it too.

Unambiguous and unapologetic

The Bear is confined in its universe, particularly in season 1 where it’s focus is tightly bound to the physical location of The Beef as the setting for almost every scene. Episodes of The Bear are generally not very long, so time is precious (every second really does count). These factors necessarily limit how deep we can get into each character. But the show is so good at drawing on different means of communication: images, lighting, score, soundtrack, phrasing, callbacks to previous episodes, other cultural references etc, that each episode is like a jewellery box with gems waiting to be unpacked and pored over. I've said that I have started reading this show like a tarot deck because of how rich the symbolism in each episode is.

So despite the constraints of time and setting, characters of colour in this show are also so very rich in their realisation and portrayal. These characters are unambiguously and - this is important - unapologetically racialised: through language (see: Tina’s use - and occasional weaponisation lmao - of Spanish), physical appearance (see: Sydney’s two-tone braids and her stunning, prolific collection of headscarves throughout the show), culturally distinct names (see: Sydney Adamu, Ebraheim, Tina Marrero, etc), food (see: Carmy’s peace offering to Syd in ep 1x03 of Ebra’s family chicken suqaar - a popular dish in the latter character’s birth country of Somalia), etc.

GIF by @chefkids

These may seem like small and inconsequential details to some. In fact I’ve been seeing a lot of commentary from folks online saying that what they like about The Bear is that race isn’t mentioned at all on the show. But make no mistake: race is all over this thing. The examples I've given are only some of the many references to racialised histories and cultures that build out the broader fabric of multicultural Chicago here.

What is not present in The Bear is a script that is wasting time explaining the characters of colour and their rich inner and outer lives to white folks. Those things are just a given and we are invited to witness them being brought to vivid life by this cast and crew. And I am fucking here for it.

Respect and allyship

Another thing I LOVE about this show is the respect given to, and the recognition of, the experience, talent, drive and ambition of its characters of colour.

This is most obvious in the relationship between Syd and Carmy who are signalled as complementary equals in many ways. Others have written on the importance of the representation embodied by Sydney’s character and you should search out that analyses, especially when its authored by Black women. The only other thing I’d say about it is that I love Sydney’s character and I also love endgame Sydcarmy (even if it’s only hinted at in the last second of the last frame of the last ever episode lmao…I will take whatever I can get of these two 😭).

I also see the show’s respect and recognition manifest in The Bear's investment in its staff, particularly in season 2. Everyone who worked at The Beef has a role at The Bear and Carmy, Syd and Nat fund the ongoing training and upskilling of their largely racialised staff to make sure this happens. Ebra and Tina are paid to attend culinary school (Carmy also gives Tina his prized knife for her studies and beyond). Marcus is sent to stage in Copenhagen to develop his skills as a patissier. And then we have The Bear itself - what started as Carmy and Michael’s vision, is now the whole team’s baby, with Sydney literally being made the captain of the ship by Carmy at the end of ep 2x09.

GIF by @savagegood

Part of what was so tragic about Carmy's fridge spiral at the end of season 2 was that he didn't get to see how beautifully the team came through in a crisis. Instead we had him internalising, regressing and lamenting how he had let everyone down. This language centred Carmy as the be all and end all of The Bear (saviour vibes) when this couldn't have been further from the truth (particularly in a season where the man spent so much of his time not in the restaurant but chasing manic pixie no-last-name-having Claire....but I digress).

Carmy is his best when he checks his ego, takes a step back and realises that he is not alone. He is part of a whole chosen family supporting one another at The Bear. And I get the sense that the folks creating this show know that we need more white folks using their power and privilege to step back and facilitate access, and less gatekeeping white saviours taking credit where its not due.

After all, and paraphrasing Viola Davis, the only thing that separates people of colour from anyone else, is opportunity.

12/04/24 Note: I’ve amended this post because I forgot to mention the most pivotal example of Sydney along with her relationship with Carmy. Also made some slight stylistic changes to phrasing cos i fixate on errors lol

[ewingstan]

So one of Ward's main themes has been asking what's needed to change as a person. Its the whole setup for Breakthrough: People who've done horrible things trying to become better. There's been lots of sub-themes within that—accountability, punishment and repentance, separating yourself from your past. There's been a constant counter to it, with most of the foils or antagonistic forces expressing the idea that you can't get better and might as well let yourself get worse. Lisa does this through her pessimism about things getting better. A lot of the minor career villains have represented it through their willingness to "be more brutal" rather than stick to the old rules we're pretending anyone followed. Cradle represented it through how he blamed Rain for not letting him stay good, and before that the rest of the cluster represented it through blaming Rain for their own bloodthirstiness via bleedthrough. "This isn't my fault, the world is making me bad" has repeatedly been positioned as the obstacle to "Regardless of why I did wrong before, I can put in work to get better."

I do think that "others are too quick to judge agents for reacting to bad circumstances imperfectly" is a bigger problem then "people are too willing to blame their circumstances for their behavior." Mostly because those unfair judgements of moral character has been the justification for uncountable cruel punishments throughout history, lead to untold people being paralyzed by the fear of Hell, lead to children being treated like they needed evil beaten out of them and convicts being treated like they're being disrespectful for daring to continue drawing breath. It can be hard for me to overcome my gut reaction towards anything that seems to be arguing for moral responsibility, because I genuinely think our ethical systems would be better without that concept being included.

But, that's not quite what Ward is doing, at least not when its at its best. "You need to take responsibility" in the sense of recognizing that you could act differently in the future is, strictly speaking, different from "you need to be held responsible" in the sense I find harmful. So as far as central themes go, its not bad. I have resistances to finding it astounding, but it's not an inherently terrible angle or anything.

That said, Ward has framed the opposing theme in counterproductive ways. While "the world wouldn't let me change" can work as a good beat, its not something that people are consciously thinking and being motivated by. We can talk about "they thought I was a monster, so they stripped me of all means to live honestly, so I had to live as a monster" or even "they thought I was a monster, so none would speak with me except others they considered monsters, and we made each other our worst selves," but in neither of those cases is the character's actions driven by their own belief that people wont let them be good—its driven by the actual external circumstances of how people treat them and restrict opportunities. So the way Cradle suddenly starts behaving horribly, not because others are treating him in ways that affect his material circumstances, but because of his reaction to the cluster bleedthrough—it just feels mistaken to even invoke "you made me a monster" as a trope. It doesn't work as a critique of pushing the blame for your actions onto others, because Cradle's reasoning for pushing the blame onto others feels written as an afterthought.

My problem with how this is treated in Amy are related, but not identical. A few chapter's ago, Amy complained about the world not letting her change. I don't think it made much sense for her, not only because her becoming someone who externalizes her issues feels like an unsatisfying direction for her after Worm, but more directly because it doesn't make sense in the context she's in. And sure, she's someone who makes poorly thought-out excuses for herself, so I'm not gonna ding the writing for that. It just feels like it makes more sense as just a parroting of what some commenters have said about Victoria and Amy, rather than something that Amy would herself think.

The same thing seems true for the above passages. A lot of things that readers have said about Amy are now being said, by Amy. Amy is of course voicing the rhetorically worst possible version of those claims, but I think the interesting thing is that the context Amy's saying it is the main thing making it reprehensible. Because as much as Amy is repeating the thin substance of what some readers have argued, fans arguing with other fans that "you shouldn't hate this character because X," is just substantially different than a rapist telling her victim "you shouldn't hate me because of X." Even if the strict words spoken were the same, they aren't at all the same claim, because one is what the audience should feel and the other is how Victoria should feel.

You could argue against this by saying "if its right for Victoria to hate Amy, its right for the audience to hate Amy, because hate is right when it reflects an accurate judgement of someone's moral character." I won't pretend that conception of justified hate isn't somewhat widespread, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny. Especially not applied to fictional characters.

[vegageshsworld]

WHAT ARE SUBLIMINALS?

subliminals are audio affirmations hidden under music or sounds of nature, they are aimed at changing internal attitudes, changing internal and external states

there are subliminals aimed at correcting health in all its manifestations (there are "local" subliminals that are aimed at healing a specific organ/state); there are also subliminals aimed at transforming consciousness, any external characteristics and defects, etc.

it is worth saying that there are countless subliminals, it is only important to know which subliminals can be useful!

HOW DO SUBLIMINALS WORK?

passing through our consciousness, which does not perceive voice instructions disguised under various sounds, so positive affirmations get into our subconscious, where they are fixed. our consciousness is a unique mechanism and sometimes it is capable of independently putting up blocks, thereby preventing ordinary affirmations that we ourselves pronounce from being fixed. therefore, we can say that subliminals have the ability to deceive our consciousness

WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR EFFECTIVE LISTENING?

it is worth starting with the fact that there are two main types of subliminals:

subliminals created on the basis of binaural beats (usually, this is indicated in the description of the subliminals), such subliminals are usually listened to either in a calm state or while running/walking and in both headphones;

subliminals created on the basis of ordinary affirmations disguised as music/nature noise. such subliminals can be listened to anywhere and in any way: you can listen without headphones, you can listen while you are doing your own thing (writing, drawing, cooking, washing, etc. - which, by the way, you can’t do when listening to subs based on binaural beats)

you can listen to subs as many times as you like + include listening to them in your list of “daily rituals” - for the desired results to appear faster, consistency and regularity are necessary!

how not to get hung up on the results and how to get maximum results after listening to any sub (in general, I want to combine these two topics, because if you do not get hung up on the results, then, a priori, you get what you want)

───── ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆ ─────

what advice could I give, based on my experience of listening to subs?

work with thinking, first of all! - add subliminals to your playlist that remove internal blocks and limitations; add subs that help your subconscious "earn" at full capacity; add boosters; also, do not underestimate meditation (at one time they really helped me calm down and achieve harmony, from which the subs began to act more effectively)

try to just lag behind yourself. yes, that's right. continue listening to subliminals, but remove all sorts of expectations from your head. the only thoughts you should have are "yes, I know that the results WILL STILL BE", "I just know that EVERYTHING WILL HAPPEN EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT"

stop going to the mirror every second and looking at how your appearance has/hasn't changed, stop waiting for anything, and just believe that everything will happen exactly the way you want. the only thing you can't know is the time frame in which certain changes will happen to you. and there will still be cuts after listening to subs, it's just that for some people they will be more or less pronounced

also, in order not to get hung up on cuts, you can find yourself a certain hobby (my hobby is video editing, where I am very distracted from all sorts of thoughts and listen to subs during it, just like that)

I would advise people who are not very receptive to subs to turn on subs at night and fall asleep with them, because our subconscious is on different frequencies during sleep and functions a little differently, being in a state of rest. therefore, as an option, listening to this can also be a good catalyst for the manifestation of the desired results

healthy sleep is also important (7-8 hours a day)

───── ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆ ─────

YOU WILL BE OKAY, I KNOW IT!! I LOVE YOU!! <3

[bucksdaffy]

okay, so i've seen some people claim that tim minear is an avid buddie shipper and that he's slowly but surely laying the groundwork for buck and eddie to become canon in the future and...

i'm just thoroughly confused about this assertion.

i'll preface this by saying i'm very new to the fandom, so i'm prepared to be wrong about this. i'm aware i may lack crucial context because i've been here only so long. also, i don't know tim personally, so i obviously can't speak to his true intentions, but i'll make my case anyway.

i'll cite two RECENT comments by tim that i assume people might draw this conclusion from:

[?: There is a sect of the fandom that just wants 9-1-1 to be the Buck and Eddie show, and any cut that removes a second of them is going to get the same reaction. Nothing short of renaming the show "Christopher's Two Dads" is going to make them happy.] T: I totally get that. I even appreciate it. Which explains the entire first act of last night's episode. I kind of did for the Buck/Eddie fans (I mean I really do it for myself in the end). I just thought... they'd like it? Shrug. I liked it, so whatever.

Minear tells Rolling Stone that he hasn’t just been aware of fan reactions, he’s actually changed storylines in the past to avoid being accused of queerbaiting. But rather than help, he says it made the show worse. “Nobody wants to be accused of queerbaiting so I kind of stopped writing those characters together. And I think it hurt the show because I was so afraid to be accused of something that I wasn’t going where I would naturally go with the stories,” Minear says. “I just decided that I just have to write the thing that I think is right. I just have to be honest with the story I’m telling and let the chips fall where they may.”

now, i may be biased, but this doesn't read to me like he plans on buddie endgame at all.

while it's clear he loves the bond between buck and eddie and enjoys highlighting it in the show, saying he totally wants them to end up together feels like a reach.

he discusses being accused of queerbaiting in the past, which led him to backtrack a little and stop writing buck and eddie together. how does this suggest he did it because he wants buddie to become canon? if that were his intention he could have continued to drop more (apparent!) hints that buck and eddie may love each other in a non-platonic way. he wouldn't care about the accusations of queerbaiting so much, because he would be planning to make them canon all along. sure, there are external constraints that could prevent this from ever materializing, but that doesn't mean he couldn't write the dialogue in a clearly ambiguous way so that once he gets a pass and everyone else involved is on board with it, he could confirm that "yeah, you were right; it was a good ol' friends-to-lovers slow burn trope all along. congrats!!" no. instead he backtracked because he didn't want anyone to think he was writing buddie as anything other than a platonic relationship. that's it. but he eventually realized it doesn't really matter because people are going to think what they want to think regardless. and he obviously loves buck and eddie's friendship so he might as well just make the most out of it at this point. and if he ever feels like maybe it is a good time to turn their friendship into something more because it feels right for story, he'll go for it. but if not, he won't.

i see a lot of people claim buddie is a six-season-long slow burn, being carefully crafted right now for future canonization. and they say tim basically confirmed this. but i really can't see his comments being a confirmation of the sort.

if there are any quotes i'm missing that suggest otherwise, i would love to go through them. so if anyone's aware of any, please don't hesitate to hit me up.

but at the moment i believe y'all are just setting yourselves up for disappointment.

[my-own-walker]

Hi! I really like your fictions! Could you write one where Evan is getting a little tipsy (don't know, like he just came back from a party late at night but the reader is sleeping and he's just a noisy ass coming home but he's still horny af) thanks a million in advance xoxo

Heat Wave

note: i know the above pic is literally not him but it looks so close i gotta use it

warnings: drunk s3x (but it’s okay bc he wants it), sm*t, oral f receiving

+++

It was unbearably hot in the city. The apartment's air conditioning was simply not cutting it. The night was disgustingly stuffy. The fan in the corner of the room oscillated from side to side, but could not sufficiently move the stifling air.

I spent the night tossing and turning, sleeping in only panties and a tank top to try to keep myself cool. Nothing worked. The stickiness in the air was bothersome, and I plainly could not sleep. And what made it worse? The only person that could cure my insomnia was out at a cast party.

Evan's new project had just wrapped, which meant a large celebration for all involved. He spent the night texting me photos from the bar they ended up at, but after a while, they stopped coming in. I figured he was having too much fun to even regard his phone, so I settled into bed to try to get some sleep. I struggled to sleep every time he was out late, but this time was especially torturous given the temperature.

I looked at the clock on the bedside table. 2 am. I groaned externally and flipped onto my side. As a last-ditch effort, I threw the duvet off the bed and slipped under the thin sheet. It was cool enough for me to begin to doze off. Just as sleep began to take me, though, the apartment door opened loudly and shook me awake.

The door shut with a bang and the sound of jingly keys being thrown onto the counter rang through the apartment. I heard Evan’s voice. He was muttering something to himself.

‘I have to be quiet, Y/N is sleeping,’ he drawled, drunkenly, just outside the bedroom door. Not subtly at all, he opened the door and stepped into the room at quite a normal volume. ‘Shhhhhh,’ he directed at the sound of the door closing.

‘Hey baby, it’s okay, I’m awake,’ I murmured.

He gasped like a child. ‘You’re awake? Yayyyy,’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘Y/N I missed you.’ He kicked his shoes off and rushed over to my side of the bed, wrapping me in a sloppy embrace.

‘I missed you too, lovely,’ I cooed. ‘How was it?’

He let go of me and took his shirt off. The sight of his muscly body made me quietly churn inside. He stood and removed his jeans, letting them pool on the floor.

‘It was good, we like, went to the bar and stuff,’ Evan said disconnectedly as he walked over to his side of the bed and flopped down. ‘I had so many drinks. So many.’ He sat up and rested his back on the headboard, folding his hands over his stomach.

‘I can tell,’ I giggled, grabbing his head and tilting it down so I could kiss it. He rested his forehead on my shoulder and slumped a bit.

‘You smell good,’ he slurred.

‘Thank you, I try,’ I laughed. He looked up, suddenly, his eyes appearing more sober than before.

‘You’re really hot,’ he breathed. He took a front-hanging strand of my hair in his fingers and tucked it behind my ear. ‘I like what you’re wearing.’

‘Oh, yeah? It’s way too hot in here, I needed something light,’ I smiled.

‘I think you should wear that every night,’ he hummed, ‘in fact, I think you should wear that all the time.’

‘That wouldn’t be appropriate now, would it?’ I laughed. He sobered even more, shifting so he could caress my bare shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t care.’ He pulled me in closer to him and began kissing me. In all honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to have him all over me, with the heat and all, but the way he touched me was so compelling. The way his sweaty bare skin felt against mine was intoxicating.

He hoisted me onto his lap, my legs straddling his hips. I ran my hands over his bare torso as we made out, its smoothness drawing me into a trance. It didn't matter how many times we'd done this. It always made my heart skip when he began to remove my clothes.

My top fell with a dull thud onto the bedroom floor. Evan regarded me in the state I was in, pausing for just a moment to appreciate me. Then, hungrily, he started kissing my skin, leaving love bites here and there as he went.

I moaned and bucked my hips at the contact. His kisses lingered on my neck and breasts. I felt his bulge grow beneath me.

'Lay down,' he instructed. I did as he pleased, shifting off his lap and into a laying position atop the sheets. I took my panties off myself to hasten the process. He situated himself in front of me, pushing my ankles gently, guiding my knees to bend. Then, softly, he parted my thighs.

Warmth spread through my core as I felt him pepper kisses along the insides of my thighs. They were tender kisses, full of passion and love. Slowly, his face made its way up my leg until he reached my wet pussy.

He ran his tongue along the folds, taking his time to savor every second. I inhaled sharply with each movement. His tongue circled my pussy before finding my clit. I cried out as he hit the bundle of nerves. It felt like fireworks were exploding deep within my core. I yelped and moaned raucously, unable to keep i together.

In no time, I was putty in his hands. I grabbed his hair and held him close to me, ensuring he would not pull away. I needed him badly. Our bodies moved in sync. It was magic. I orgasmed so loudly that I thought the neighbors might come knocking. Evan sat me up and hugged me closely after my fits of pleasure subsided.

'You okay?' he whispered in my ear, stroking my back delicately. I nodded, breathing heavily. 'Can I keep going?'

'Yes,' I panted, 'please.'

Evan laid me back down and spread my legs again, this time much hungrier. Too drunk to be cunning, or even a tease, he wasted no time removing his briefs and lining his cock up with my entrance.

He thrust into me with a grunt, feeling my cunt’s walls tighten around his length. He threw his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. I reached up, pulling him by his neck toward me so I could kiss him. Not for long, though. The deeper his cock went inside me, the less will I had to keep going.

There was nothing I could do besides grip the bedsheets as he had his way with me. It was so hot and heavy. His touch was all encompassing and heavenly. He came with a loud moan and a string of curse words. I felt his hot load spill into me.

‘Fuck,’ I spat, gasping for air. Evan pulled out and collapsed on top of me, nestling his head into the crook of my neck. I felt his chest rise and fall sharply and his heartbeat pound right next to my sternum. ‘You alright?’ I breathed.

‘Ye-yeah,’ he panted. ‘Fuck. You’re so hot.’

‘No you,’ I laughed. He rolled off of me and flopped onto his back. I sighed in relief. ‘Good. It’s too fucking hot in here to have you on me like that.’ He chuckled softly.

‘You’re right,’ he drawled. ‘I need a cold shower.’

‘I’ll join you,’ I suggested. ‘I think there’s no use in trying to sleep tonight. We gotta call maintenance about the AC tomorrow.’

‘I can’t lie, Y/N, ‘m kinda too drunk to remember that,’ he slurred. ‘You gotta remind me tomorrow.’

I stood and walked to the bathroom, chuckling quietly at him. His drunkenness made him all the more loveable. I turned on the shower and heard a thud in the bedroom.

‘Everything okay?’ I called.

‘Yeahhhhh,’ Evan drawled. ‘I tripped over the duvet.’

I shook my head and laughed aloud. Damn he was cute.

+++

Two posts in one day after days of radio silence?! Am I sick? No…just feeling spicy LMAO.

[straycalamities]

so for some Reasons, the same reasons zombinoslayer is on indefinite hiatus, i have a question on like. Say there is a Truffula Flu-oriented plot, story. Y'know a narrative. Coming up, but the way it's being made is basically prose-based, how would you prefer to see that formatted onto a tumblr askblog/archive thing?

it does deal with two characters and two characters only (so far?)

rp-style is out of the question because of editing reblogs being killed

but...i have a few thoughts, but i'm not sure which one people would like to read and digest the most

for more clarity on what i mean with terms/styles: click under the readmore

when i say "prose-style" i mean it's written like a novel. it's 3rd-person limited and past tense.

The sun was baring down hard on Mikey's back as he trudged down the sidewalk. He drug his feet, pose hunched. Why did he have to run out of eggs on the hottest day of the year?

when i say "script-style" i mean that it's written how you would read the script for a show or a play. this is how i treated zombinoslayer's big scenes. it'd have progressive images for each action/dialogue, wherever i deemed an image needed/important

Mikey: [The sun is bright and harsh. He is walking down the sidewalk. He looks exhausted.] Why did I have to run out of eggs on the hottest day of the year?!

and when i say comic, well, that's obvious. i'd do my best to translate everything as well as i can into something that is heavily image and dialogue based that has comic frames and such.

pros and cons of all these being:

prose pros (lol): it keeps all of the character's inner feelings, struggles, and thoughts and even some motives out and easier to see, which with these scenes and with how these characters are, might be important or even very enlightening for people i also don't have to draw as much because i would only be illustrating significant parts and to make the posts look more appealing/interesting. thus updates would happen more frequently. easier to plug into a translator if english isn't your first language the images would be illustrations i'd actually put effort into since there would be so few of them

prose cons: it'll be a lot more reading overall less left to interpretation, i guess? less pretty pictures? it takes a lot more cerebral energy in some cases to take in prose and turn it around in your mind i just get that for some people, they don't like walls of text. like i, for one, have gotten very bad at reading so i get it

script pros: more pictures to look at then prose-style scenes move by more quickly and smoothly, everything focuses more on actions and interactions so maybe things are easier to digest than prose-style still translator-friendly updates still more frequent than comic-style, but less frequent than prose-style most likely full-color images. may or may not have a bg in every image (just think zombino-slayer style? but i might not render every time either like i did there because that was..phew..that took a lot out of me)

script cons: more images to draw for me the format might be wonky to some none of those inner thoughts/monologues, a lot of depth and inner feelings/struggles/references made in the characters heads are left out. it all focuses on the external with hints to the internal left to expression, body language, and dialogue and the reader's own bias/experience

comic pros: ALL THE PICTURES YOU COULD WANT! everything's images! if you're most comfy with reading comics or manga already, you'd dig this (obviously) the least reading and it's all together in one image (well multiple) very easy to soar through and take everything in since the focus is on images and dialogue Only (maybe narrative notes or thought boxes when really important) easiest to share i'd think? and easiest to get a feel for what's going on in a scene without having to study and/or think too hard about it

comic cons: oh my god all that drawing...updates would be slow as molasses tbqh.. unless i decided to do manga-style aka B&W or limited grayscale/monochrome. even then though again, everything internal would be left to the hints you'd get from the external i could give with imagery, panel-shape, dialogue, and such not translator-friendly (i know there's the google image translator, but i'd be handwriting the text (i just like how it looks best) and it's not always friendly to handwriting)

--

as far as specifics for each style, we'd work that out once one is picked

other notes: i do think i'm a pretty strong prose-writer, but i also think i'm a pretty strong comicsmith. so i don't think it's really up to what i'd, personally, be able to pull off best with the skills i own :3 (and i mean script-style is the most simple of the three. and i've already done it. it'd be almost identical to zombinoslayer. and it'd be most similar to Camp Entre's rp-style i think? even though Camp Entre was much more dialogue-based than anything else

i know i haven't uploaded too much of either, especially my writing, but trust...i'm pretty good at it. at least that's what people tell me.

[grimme-and-specs]

I love Kanaya x Rose as much as the next guy because of how they are a fit for each other intellectually, but I will always cherish Rose x John more because John is the whimsical bundle of joy and optimism an cynical, collected, pessimistic, know better girl would compliment. Like Superman and Lois Lane.

You see the vision!

I also get why Rosemary works, they are both very intelligent in their own ways and they go hand in hand, and their dynamic can be interesting with how they could possibly try to one-up each other in their intelligence. Plus, their respective curiosity about one another makes it cuter. It would make total sense for them to fall in love on that meteor and to rely on each other.

HOWEVER, I too, am a sucker for the "optimistic fella" × "jaded guy" dynamic. There's a lot more potential with that (Grimdorks) in my opinion. And as a writer-in-training, this sparks my imagination far more. I can imagine the wacky situations, the shenanigans, the mess-ups, the conflicts. It's not like I can't write Rosemary or draw it, though. It's a matter of preference, and Grimdorks has me by a damn chokehold.

(Further on is where I begin to ramble):

There's also the twist of John being incredibly alone, not physically, but emotionally. He's very aloof, but his whimsical and optimistic nature masks that well enough. And Rose has her own silly and plain mischievous side, through mostly written word and of course when she's by herself, but she always has the front of her intellect. I typically write Grimdorks off of that base. John slowly gains his deep emotional connections back and is able to talk about his own issues thanks to Rose, and Rose slowly lets go of way-too-high standards and lets herself *be herself* without the fear of judgment thanks to John. Of course, these issues can be solved with other pairings in another writer's work, but with them in particular, it just clicks in my head better. Rose is the tentacleTHERAPIST. John is the GHOSTYtrickster, or, ECTObiologist. They were friends. Now they're reconnecting. And this sort of emotional dynamic, where both parties slowly grow and come out of their shells because of each other's influences, makes me lose my shit.

(Quick little funfact: Ecto is a prefix defining an outer or an external trait, coming from the Greek word "ektos", which meant "outside". Like say for example... Ectoplasm).

See, I could go on about these fucks for ages. That alone, took me over 50 minutes to write. And I'm not kidding. There are so many hypothetical scenarios, and I was just going off of what I gathered from canon, like a potential post-game scenario. I am normal about them I swear LMAOO.

Anyway, I would love to gather some thoughts and even some ships and scenarios y'all reading enjoy. It's part of the reason why I rambled so damn hard. Not only to share my appreciation for a fictional pairing that is basically a serotonin cheat code to me, but to also find out what everyone else likes or even dislikes. That's the fun in sharing these sorts of opinions on ships. You could also send me an image of a cruise ship too. Or a cardboard box. Either way, I just wanna say thanks for reading, I know I tend to get long winded over things I am passionate about.

[floralembarrassment]

I don't remember ever not being this way (1/1) (jegulus raising Harry)

Harry was only 8 and he still held Regulus' hand in busy parking lots and when crossing the street. Sometimes he talked incessantly about facts he'd read in books or things he learned at school. Others he was so quiet and focused James was always sure he was getting into trouble but was only ever caught reading or drawing in his room.

Harry was only 8 and he had big questions about the world. He wanted to help everyone and sometimes asked often to speak to someone in charge to change the "bad things." Other times he felt like maybe the world was the bad thing.

Harry was only 8 and he still wanted James to tuck him into bed at night. Sometimes he would ask for stories about James' life, mystified that his parents were people before they were parents. Other times he would call for Regulus so he could hear a story in french.

Harry was only 8 and he had big feelings. Sometimes he couldn't manage them. Others he shared he couldn't explain it but it was like he couldn't feel them anymore at all.

Harry was only 8.

Just a little boy trying his best to understand this life.

And his fathers worried about him ceaselessly because they knew that he was just a kid being a kid but he was also struggling to navigate that internal waters that flowed through his veins and brain and the external waters that required you to both have a boat and know how to swim.

And his fathers knew what it felt like to drown.

And maybe they did everything they could, talked to him about it, held him through it, rode the waves with him to move away from it.

But Harry was only 8 and he wanted to be like all the other kids. Sometimes he was too sad and he couldn't explain why. Other times he was fine and didn't know how to make it last. Often he found his parents, curled up into their side, and remembered that no matter what he wasn't alone and he was so loved.

[midnight-omega]

Anatomy hc

Okiii ur girl spent most of last night trying to figure some things out and draw some diagrams fr

This post focuses on the reproductive anatomy of my omegaverse. I'm gonna go through each of the 6 gender/dynamic combinations and give a little info about how I think it all works :> like everything else this varies from person to person so if this isn't ur thing no worries! If this is ur thing feel free to use it! But if you use my diagrams I'd appreciate it if you credited me be i spent a long time on them 😔

I also want to link this very in depth explanation because I did take a lot of inspiration from it for my male omegas! I adore this concept for them and I'll be using it going forward. The author talks about a lot more tho some of which imma steal some of which Im not :))

Okay lets get into it fr, be warned there are my messy diagrams of all kinds of private bits under the cut. Also if tumblr kills the quality im so sorry fr :((

Male Alpha

🌕 Let's start with our boys here.

🌕 Honestly they're pretty straightforward! There's not too many crazy anatomy changes here. They function pretty much the same as irl amab anatomy does.

🌕 They have a penis and external testes

🌕 They have a prostrate that can be stimulated via anal penetration

🌕 Male alphas tend to be on the bigger side concerning length/girth but this varies from person to person

🌕 Now, the defining characteristic of a male alpha is their knot. Only alphas have a knot!

🌕 The knot is soft tissue that expands during orgasm. This "locks" the penis into the vagina in order to facilitate conception. In simple terms, sperm stuck inside better change pregananant

🌕 The knot typically stays expanded for about 20min after orgasm, but this can vary. Any longer than an hour though, can be cause for concern

🌕 The male alpha usually has a larger knot than a female alpha and experiences higher chances of successfully "tying" (tying here meaning the knot actually gets stuck in the receiver)

🌕 An alpha can knot outside of rut, but these knots may be smaller or not fully expanded since they're lacking the overproduction of hormones that rut creates

🌕 A deflated knot is still visible as a ring of much softer tissue than the rest of the shaft

Female Alpha

🌕 oh boy, oh god, mother mary save us all

🌕 This one was so HARD to figure out fr... let me get into this

🌕 I've always liked the idea of a female alpha having a hidden penis best. One that's concealed where the clit ought to be but expands and pops out during rut or when aroused. I like this one best bc I'm not a super big fan of the anatomy set up of having a vulva and dick and balls all at once, and anatomically I never understood like... the concept of the clit swells a lil and thats the knot bc... penetrate how?? I also just don't like pregnant female alphas much! To me alphas impregnate only not carry

🌕 So hidden penis was my favorite option !

🌕 But once I started drawing out the diagram I immediately had problems placing the sheathed penis inside the body

🌕 My biggest issues were the bladder and pubic bone. The bladder I can move around easy enough, especially since female and male anatomy have it in slightly different positions anyway

🌕 But what was fucking me up was that damn bone

🌕 If we want to replace the clit with a penis the penis is going to need to run straight through that bone. The pubic bone in female anatomy sits right above the clit basically. In male anatomy its a tad higher up but even moving it up it would still be in the way of the penis

🌕 I could continue to move the bone or do away with it but then we compromise the human shape of the female alpha. The rest of the dynamics would look human in the hips and pelvis but female alpha she'd be.. little fucked up. Not to mention I'm sure there's some other wild medical consequence of removing or moving the pubic bone that I'm not aware of

🌕 So... we can't put the sheathed penis exactly where the clit is

🌕 I could put it where the vagina is, but then that eliminates the vagina entirely and makes female alphas unable to have penetrative sex and tbh I'm not into that give her a gspot yk?

🌕 I could move the urethra around, like push it forward towards the clit even more and push the vaginal opening backwards, or even combine the vagina and anus like the male omega but I wasn't a fan of that either. It makes her feel to male omega-y and less unique to me

🌕 Furthermore like... vaginas are low. Like lower than u think, clits are a little lower too. And penises are so high! So.. having a penis come out so low between your legs wouldn't that make penetrating kinda hard unless you had a crazy long horse cock or smth.

🌕 So I ended up keeping the penis sheathed like I wanted, but I moved it up

🌕 The penis head is a little above where a clit would sit but I still removed the clit from her anatomy

🌕 To avoid the bone I had to put the penis above it. This isn't super crazy since the vans deferens also comes down over the bone, but it is a little awkward because this isn't a little tube this is a PENIS. This is a whole long cord of tissue and blood vessels here and I'm not giving her a small flat cock to compensate she doesn't deserve that

🌕 So, her muscle, fat, skin, and what have you is gonna have to push out to make room for the penis sitting above the bone.

🌕 Insert female alpha sheath bulge >:))

🌕 tbh I think giving her a bit of a bump is pretty hot so I'm satisfied!

🌕 However bc its sitting right over a bone any pressure applied to it is going to be uncomfortable or even painful for her

🌕 So... ig if you wanna kick a female alpha in the nuts aim for her sheath fr

🌕 So then I was good for awhile, I had placed the penis in the body in a way that satisfied me and kept the vagina intact

🌕 But okay now the penis has to come out

🌕 The female alpha cock still sits lower than the male one, so we have to do a little more bending to get it to flip up in proper penis formation

🌕 No problem, I'll just give the female a longer base after the knot and said base will be way more bendy than a real penis np np

🌕 Okay but... if we have a noodle base how is the erection staying erect and not just becoming a top heavy string of stuck blood that flops tf over

🌕 Insert what I did with the labia

🌕 I want female alphas to enjoy vaginal sex if they want to mostly for kinky reasons yk but its my world so!

🌕 But this means that I don't really wanna touch the labia around the vagina, they should still get looser during arousal they should still be fun to play with yada yada yada

🌕 But the penis needs something to lock it upright. So I split the labia into even more parts.

🌕 On irl afab anatomy theres the inner and outer labia and that's that. On the female alpha tho I had to get creative. I gave her her inner and outer labia that would function normally

🌕 Then I gave her another set around the exit of her sheath. I called them! The penile labia for lack of creativity and anatomical knowledge! Unlike the outer and inner labia around the vagina, these ones stiffen and lock up during arousal after the penis has been unleashed. This keeps it out and helps it stand!

🌕 I also gave her a middle labia. This is an extremely tough piece of muscle that separates her upper and lower sets of lips. The middle labia supports our bendy base even more and tends to get engorged and may even expand a little to support the weight of the cock and knot

🌕 This isn't fool proof by ANY means and I'm sure ppl who know anatomy better than me have a million issues rn but yk what? This makes sense to me and took me awhile to figure it out fr so I'm content

🌕 Now... I gave her a uterus-like structure and still called it "uterus" for lack of better term. this is not a functioning uterus so female alphas cannot conceive

🌕 But in this model I have this uterus act more like a muscle that helps push the penis out of the sheath. Believable? Idk but its chill with me

🌕 The female knot is generally a littler smaller than the male knot because it's gotta fit in the body

🌕 The knot here doesn't even begin to expand until the penis is unsheathed, whereas in males it may puff up slightly on initial arousal

🌕 Since I did not give her balls, her testes are inside the body where the ovaries would typically be

🌕 insert the part where I tell you alpha sperm does not need to be cool. It can survive higher temperatures which also makes sense considering omegas practically have heat strokes during heat, the sperm would need to be a little tougher.

🌕 But then why do males have balls? I got u fam ! Bc while they can survive in warmer temperatures that does not mean they thrive there. The healthiest swimmers are still kept a little cooler. Female alphas may be less fertile even because of this which could be some fun plot points bc i love female alphas pls write them more

🌕 That was so LONG but I think that's it for her

Male Beta

🌙 The male beta doesn't really have anything super atypical from irl amab bodies.

🌙 The penis of a beta tends to be a lil smaller than an alpha's but bigger than an omegas, but again this isn't always the case!

🌙 We do have a prostate for fun anal times if desired

🌙 Beta sperm is not as heat resistant as alpha sperm. They can impregnate other betas just fine but may struggle with an omega in heat. It's suggested that b/o couples try conceiving outside of heat with the help of fertility experts :>

🌙 Male betas cannot conceive, they have no uterus or vagina

🌙 Betas do not knot!

Female Beta

🌙 Again, not a lot of differences to talk about here, typical afab anatomy

🌙 It is worth noting that in my verse I am not giving female betas periods bc thats mean

🌙 For this reason their endometrium is thinner than ours so the body can reabsorb it without a true heat easier

🌙 I'll also say that beta eggs are just built different for this thinner endometrium

🌙 usually you need a certain thickness for the egg to embed properly to the uterine wall, but imma say that for whatever reason beta eggs are totally chill with a thin lining. They have a better grip or smth ig!

🌙 This allows my girls to get pregnant without an extra added issue due to my silly anatomy choices

🌙 It also makes her different from the female omega which I'll talk about later :))

Male Omega

🌑 Okay ya'll get ready for shitshow number two

🌑 actually the male omega wasn't as bad to figure out mostly bc I stole the idea of the epivagina from the author I linked above the cut!!

🌑 I'll sum up if you don't want to read through the link (you should tho it's really interesting stuff you might wanna use in ur own verse!)

🌑 So like the female alpha there are depictions I don't like when it comes to the male omega. I don't like them not having a uterus and just being... a guy? Like having nothing about them that makes them different than a male beta. Also, like how I said I don't like pregnant alphas, I don't like omegas that can impregnate.

🌑 I'm also not a fan of not giving them a penis and having them only have a vagina and uterus. What makes the two omega genders different then? Breasts? Not a fan tbh considering I like my male omegas to breastfeed with their lil pregnancy boobies (cancer in venus I like boobies and lactation not sorry)

🌑 Basically I want my mpreg and I want my penis too

🌑 So, like the female alpha, we have to give them both parts.

🌑 Since there's not a ton of room between the balls and the anus (the taint is only so big yall) I'm not a fan of just giving them a vulva here

🌑 I'm also not a big fan of the birth canal that develops from the taint when pregnant just bc it doesn't make sense to me that the body just forms and unforms a hole that they have to push out a baby the size of a small melon through. Like in that case pregnancy must be excruciatingly painful on top of pregnancy already being painful and hard

🌑 So... butt babies. Except not quite

🌑 The popular option is the cloaca but... I have issues with that too

🌑 If you read the chapter on male omegas on the ao3 link you can see why. A short cloaca definitely results in poop in the vagina. I don't think I need to explain why poop in the vagina is like the worst thing. As the author points out it also makes it difficult for fun oral time just bc the amount of infections you can get from... constant ass licking/fucking especially bc I haven't seen any male omegas telling their alphas omg wait i need to shower, shit, and have an enema first

🌑 The long cloaca can work ig but then the penis never enters the vagina and thats just not fun. The male omega would never be able to have vaginal sex fr :((

🌑 So I'm going with what the author made up! The epivagina!

🌑 The epivagina is a strong valve-like muscle kinda like the middle labia in alpha females.

🌑 During non horny times the epivagina remains positioned in a way that closes off the vaginal opening. No penetration without literal tearing can take place with it closed. The anus is open and free for poop!

🌑 During heat and arousal the epivagina switches the other way opening the vagina and closing the anus so the opposite is true

🌑 You do not have to be in heat for the vagina to open btw! Just turned on

🌑 During birth we can just assume the sphincters and muscles around this anus and vagina were built for stretching, though it might be recommend for male omegas to anal train a bit to get all our muscles ready for it (there are literally butt plugs the size of a child's head so we can train out asses a lil)

🌑 Now the drawback to this would be that... you cannot have anal with a male omega if he's turned on. Tbh that's okay with me since i'm not really into anal anyway! If it's not okay with u then.. idk change it to fit ur kink babe im not stopping u

🌑 It also kinda acts as a rape defense too in a way.... like a duck if we're not turned on good luck entering the vagina. ofc... the exception to this is heat in heat it's p much always open unless we need to shit rn so ig vaginal rape protection in heat isn't a thing but it's neat outside of heat

🌑 Male omegas do produce very small amounts of sperm but they're such sad little boys it's basically impossible to get pregnant from them. Most of them have clear orgasms if they come from their cocks at all.

🌑 I did raise their balls a bit back into the body. We're still descended but not... exactly the whole way if that makes sense. Our sperm just isn't as cool this way and it's not heat resistant fr!

🌑 Bc omegas get so hot during their heats this can also decrease or fully kill off any remaining sperm production.

🌑 Technically this way you can still get pregnant by a male omega if you're a female beta/omega but.... bc its my verse and I don't really want that I'm gonna say it happens like once in a century it is not really a thing

🌑 The penis here is smaller than anyone else's, but not as small as you'd think. I'm not going the whole micropenis route with them you can still be satisfied through penetration with my male omegas!

🌑 Like the author, I also like the concept of giving them a prostate and an internal clit >:))

🌑 no real reason other than 3 ways for my boys to orgasm and I like it

Female Omega

🌑 Pretty similar to the female beta, not too much difference from irl afab anatomy

🌑 The biggest difference between a female beta and female omega are:

🌑 Slick production (beta's do not produce slick)

🌑 The endometrium

🌑 I gave my beta's a thinner one so their bodies can absorb it and we can avoid menstruation!

🌑 Well in female omegas the endometrium is thicker, about the same as the average one irl or maybe even a little thicker than that.

🌑 Her eggs just aren't as good as gripping just like irl fr, so we need a lot of cushion for them

🌑 especially since female omegas tend to release more than one egg a cycle (2-4 is normal) so if we're all embedding we need more room to do it

🌑 A female omega also can reabsorb her endometrium no worries I am not giving her a period either

🌑 Instead I'm going to say that heat has 3 phases. Pre heat where we get ready for ovulation that lasts about 3-4 days, heat heat which lasts about 1-2 days or less. This is when we are fertile we need to get pregnant NOW, and then post heat which lasts about 3 days where our body temperature is still extremely high and we're still horny and feverous but the egg has passed alas. Its during post heat that we reabsorb and break down the endometrium. Sometimes we might see a little blood a lil spotting yk, but for the most part our heat stroke helps us absorb it idc if that's unreasonable its what imma say

🌑 The term heat usually includes heat and post heat but not pre heat (I mean you get off work for heat and post heat and we use the term heat as a collective to include that 5 or so days but this doesn't include the pre heat) but i'll do a different post for heats later !

I think thats everything if you survived all that thank you for indulging me fr! Feel free to pop in my askbox if you wanna talk about smth and like I said in the beginning feel free to steal but pls credit my diagrams if u use them :))

[oohbuggypie]

"and as he wept, he wept and said, 'Oh, my.. Oh, my.. Would to God I had died for He'"

this is fully inspired by @goferwashere 's PO!! Monster Hunter AU 🩷 depicted is Don Flamenco in his monster form being held in his last moments by Joe. the writing that describes their fight, Don's death, and Joe's regret are all below the cut as its very long. but WOW i just could not get this idea out of my head . thank u soo much Gofer for the amazing AU and thank u to the whole community for being my courage to be brave and release something a little less cutesie than usual ! 🥹 additional details i rlly want to be known::

-the tattoo on Don' torso is an altered version of that in the regular PO!! universe; the one depicted reads "COLOSSIANS 3:2" :: the verse's meaning is "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things". this is meant to reflect his disdain for humans, and how he views them as lesser

-the stab wound placement is below Don's right pectoral; this is in reflection of Jesus Christ's 5th wound he suffered whilst being crucified. additionally, it is said that what seeped from the wound wasn't only blood, but water as well; i found this very fitting for his character for obvious reasons lol

-the lyrics above the drawing are a condensed / altered version from the choral piece "David's Lamentation", one of my favorite songs ever !

phewph okay writing time ! unfortunately i have never written angst, let alone fighting OR death .. this is also being released about half an hour shy of midnight on bad sleep so proofreading is out of the question.. this is prob a hard read but I STAY CONFIDENT ! here we gooo 🩷::

-------------------------------------------------------

Don hissed and swung his fist in an aimless direction, hearing the collision's result come in the form of an agonized grunt from the man near him. Blind rage mingled with fear consumed Don's body in a way God himself forbade, yet he continued to batter any flesh that came into contact with his.

Joe's entire being ached, his eye now burning from the knuckles that dug into it just moments ago. He clenched it shut and let the obscurity of his vision drive his instincts to wherever they were necessary. He aimed to return the punch with his own fist plunging to meet Don's stomach, momentarily knocking the air from his lungs. As Don's arms instinctively lowered to gaurd where his sore flesh was struck, Joe snarled and drew his left arm back to slam a fist into Don's cheek. The siren felt a coursing agony not only externally, but through his heart. He knew what would come, yet he continued to bare his teeth. He ripped apart anything which bothered him and felt no haunting ring in his mind. Though this time, he feared that the bells would toll.

Joe took full advantage of the temporary stun he inflicted upon Don and wrapped his hands around the man's throat. Joe kicked Don's ankle in so that he buckled beneath his own weight, dropping them both to meet the floor. Joe felt a shake within his bones, like the structures in his own body didn't want him to do this. He didn't want to. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Yet his body moved now without his mind, pressing his entire weight into the neck of the helpless man below him. Don couldn't stand the desperation that racked his body, and above that distaste, he couldn't bare to look up at the deathly eyes staring into his own. The man who he called a friend held less semblance to a human and now closer to a wraith, some wretched figure distorted by horror. His skin appeared a sickly gray in the darkness of the gym's room, and had his hands always been this coarse and cold? Nonetheless, for the present time Don disregarded the friend he once had and viewed him now as a step above a pet; competition.

Don snarled and thrashed beneath the body of Joe and locked his hands around the arms above. His brain felt like a searing gas within his head, but that lack of consciousness was immediately replaced by instinct. Don slid his hands down to grip Joe's wrists and ripped them outwards with a fell swipe. Joe wasn't spared a second to process the motion before his nose was slammed by Don's forehead. A pained cry was all his voice could manage before his vision flickered black.

-----

When he awoke, only seconds has passed since he blacked out. With a horrified start, Joe began to thrash his arms through the water engulfing him. His legs kicked in the same motion, his left heel slamming into an excruciating pressure seeming to bind his right ankle. The force released as soon as it felt his bruising strike against it. Joe desperately made strokes with his arms upwards, looking for any form of light to signify what differentiated the surface from the bottom. Joe felt a darkness reigning upon him as another figure trailed close behind, its presence growing heavier with each struggling wave of his arms throughout the pool.

Joe's face broke the surface. Without a second to catch his breath, he began scanning the area with bewildered eyes for the nearest edge. His loafers felt like bricks tied to his ankles, and the turtleneck he donned was quickly becoming suffocating. A short distance behind him, a splash breaking the water's tension drove Joe into fight or flight. His arms clawed in front of him with strokes large enough to leave his arms aching the next day, yet that same pain was his drive to reach the edge quicker. He gripped the ledge of the hard floor and hoisted himself above the edge, rushing into a position where his knees and one arm balanced his body upright. With his unoccupied hand, he reached where the bells tolled and the colors sank. Joe frantically patted his pocket for where the knife's sheath bulged.

Don arose from the water he resided in just seconds after his former partner. Joe ripped the leather from his pocket and reached into it, gripping the handle as if he was warding death itself away. His knuckles were white with pressure, and his wide eyes locked on the man inches from himself. Don's eyes were sickly and no longer passing as human; the bags beneath them were a bruised purple, and where the whites of his eyes should be were replaced by a glassy blue. His brows dug wrinkles into his forehead like malicious scars upon skin. And the worst of it all was the death-like frown that crumpled his entire facial structure; it drew his eyes in a downward spiral, and his lips curled against his flesh like desperate hands digging into anything for hold.

With his chest exposed and either arms beside him as means to lift himself, Joe raised his blade and drudged it into Don's flesh.

Don's eyes fell like the world's light upon an empty room, and the sharp inhale in his throat thrummed akin to the death rattle. Despite the metal lodged deep within his chest, he managed the strength to drag himself from his home's grasp and to lay on the freezing tile below him. Joe's hands left his mouth as he let out some visceral shout that made cherubs above weep. He scurried across the soaked floor to examine the man before him. Joe slammed himself down upon the floor and struggled to lift him, eventually draping Don's being across his own. Don's arms rested against Joe's bent knees, and his head tilted into his chest with slowing breaths beating against his sweater. The remaining warmth of his breath settling on his own shoulder resembled the comfort of a blanket upon a child's cold body. Joe felt static piercing through his brain and throughout his ears.

He slid his trembling hand to grab the hilt of his blade, yanking it from between Don's ribs with a crumbling expression upon his face. Where the stab wound remained open, Joe rested his hand on its opening and let the blood seep onto his skin. He lowered them to graze the rest of Don's torso, creating an up and down rhythm almost as if to comfort him. He felt a dread in his stomach nothing in his life had ever compared to; he had killed numerous times before this, and for pettier reasons. But the understanding of what he had just done settled upon him like the smothering embrace of a rotting being. Joe lost any remaining thoughts in his mind as small, breaking moans passed the pursing lips of Don.

Don's body felt washed by shades of baby blue. His eyed fixated on an empty and quickly fading horizon. The right side of his body held a sensation that reminded him of familiarity; dripping water and warm waves caressing his flesh. Though this time, the sea seemed to be accompanied by rainfall. Don couldn't muster the strength to look up, let alone turn his head, but he felt warm droplets fall upon his hair. The fog that began swallowing his mind didn't allow him to understand where the water's source was coming from. They dropped rapidly now, dripping enough so that they slid across his own cheeks; they made up for the lack of his own tears. The air that was becoming increasingly hard to keep in his grasp now filled with a tune, a rhythm similar to those he practiced when dancing.

"Je suis désolé, je suis vraiment désolé, oh..."

Don couldn't understand the words, couldn't sing along to the beautiful tune that seemed to hail from Heaven itself. It broke his heart a bit, seeing that one of his greatest attributes was his ethereal singing voice. But the words soothed his soul, and held this wonderous ability to make his eyes feel comfortable closing.

"Oh, mon Dieu... Oh, mon Dieu, pardonne-moi... Pardonne-lui aussi..." Joe heaved, his hands clutching the bloodied skin of Don's torso. His body shook with a might that caused Don's own body to tremor along with his.

Don wished he knew what those words meant. Don wished he could hear the voice sing in his ears forever, let the melody echo throughout the chambers of his fading mind every second of every waking moment. Don's face fell cold, and his body felt as if it was losing its occupation; but fear never crossed his mind when his vision finally began to fade. He loved the hands running up and down his body, loved the warmth cascading against his side, loved the song, he loved this moment. He let his breath soften and slip from his mind's priorities, and now focused on shutting his eyes to rest.

The last thing Don truly felt was the slipping of beads across his collar bones.

-----

Joe removed the rosary from around Don's neck and let its wooden roses slide into a pile inside his unused pocket. He vowed that the blade would make no contact with the necklace.

Joe couldn't and didn't think as he laid the body of his sweet friend down to rest away from his own. He looked once more into the drained yet softened features of Don's face; his lips looked soft against his chin, and his brows no longer furrowed in such a dreadful way. Joe stood for moments, spending minutes staring down at the body now devoid of life on the floor. The worst sight of the entire night was the wound beneath the right side of Don's chest. And even upon staring at it, running his eyes over it again and again, Joe just couldn't think deeper about it.

He turned his back from the death that loomed behind him and exited through the double doors of the room. Joe stalked off into the night, letting the world's air solidify the agonizing tears that stained his cheeks, down to his neck.

END !! thanks 4 reading if u did and thank u 2 anybody who sees this !! now im gonna go ahead and pass out it's 11:45 PM and im sick 🩷

[nogacheloveka-blog]

The Bad Sanses somehow ended up in the Backrooms. №6

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This is the translation of the another post from Russian to English. I understand English, but it is very difficult for me to write in English, so I asked chat GPT to help me. I have corrected some parts, but there still may be mistakes.

Heh, Killer found his lost family. I thought it was funny to depict him like that. To gather information, I use both English and Russian wikis on Backrooms. Level 2.1 is in the Russian version, but for some reason it's not in the English one. I won't be too accurate with the canon and will even take liberties with it. It's quite confusing and I don't want to get too tangled up in it, since my story isn't serious. I'm just having fun.

Shaking through a couple more rooms and turning into random corners, the group began to hear the sound of working machinery. Since there were no other landmarks, it was decided to follow the noise. Along the way, they encountered more strange inscriptions and drawings on the walls. Some were particularly interesting, and Dust even wrote them down in his notebook . It seems he gets some pleasure from working with paper and pen. Especially since the previous owner kept notes sloppily and confusingly, making it not always clear what was a note for later words and what was just random phrases or a list of necessary items (shopping list?). He also constantly mentioned other people, which sent shivers down their spines.

Apparently, people mainly lived in the Hub and in small numbers in some other levels and locations.

To get to the Hub, enter the Konami code at the entrance to level 1. You can also accidentally get there through doors on other levels.

Did this mean that the locals also mess around with files? What a headache .

The group decided to avoid people for as long as possible. Of course, Error wasn't particularly worried: he was capable of destroying AUs that were sometimes entirely made up of people. (Nightmare knew that sometimes it required several regenerations in the Anti-Void, but decided to keep that knowledge to himself) .

As they made their way to the rumbling machines, the Bad Guys noticed that the temperature of the air began to change: rising sharply above Hotland and then dropping to the coolness of Snowdin. Of course, for their magic bodies, this didn't pose any harm, but they had never seen such jumps in the atmosphere before. But it seemed to be a distinctive feature of the level they were moving through.

In one of the dark locked rooms, they came across a new type of creature. Their aura seemed quite familiar . They were clearly strange distorted monsters from the underground. Perhaps Snowdin's dogs or something similar. They didn't attack, but constantly wanted to approach and sniff, which made Error swear.

These speechless creatures got along well with Nightmare, through whose ability to suppress and ignite emotions, they could communicate with them in a way, instilling the necessary direction of thoughts and receiving an emotional response. Here, the Keeper of Negativity was in his element. It was only annoying that he couldn't feed on them: Smilers simply reacted to external irritants and were slightly smarter than amoebas.

However, according to records , these monsters willingly attacked humans, and humans were terrified of them. Dust immediately set about correcting the record about them.

Smilers Nasty things, but I've been lucky enough to avoid them so far. They say there's another nest besides the Hive with these creatures alien to our world. Researchers seem to suspect that they're really from another planet. Tips : - Maintain eye contact and slowly back away. - Be quiet and don't make loud noises. - Use Smiler Repellent. - Turn off all light sources you're equipped with. Prohibitions: - Panic and run away from the Smiler if it hasn't started chasing you. - Make loud noises.- Leave your light sources on. -------------- *are safe and friendly like dogs. Killer fit in well with their pack. They love light and seem to eat it somehow. Not so strange, after all, photons do exist.

They continued on with their entourage.

From the hot spots of level 2, you can get to 2.1 (nothing interesting, leads to level 3). Some doors here lead to level 3. A strange colorful curved door leads to 283 (DAMNED CLOWN HELL).

No one wanted to go to "Clown Hell", even though the notebook compiler had been wrong about the danger level of various phenomena more than once. But if the locations of this place were called "levels," then to get out of here, they had to go through all of them, right? It sounds logical.

The group still managed to get to level 3. Although it wasn't without problems. The notes spoke of two paths: accidentally through doors and through hot areas. They seemed to have used both at the same time.

Finding a place with high temperature or doors wasn't that difficult thanks to the group's overall number, along with the Smilers . Error preferred to simply stretch threads in all directions for some reason ( He won't get his glasses in this company ) . Then it was a simple routine of opening doors in the found "hot spots." Smilers couldn't open doors themselves, so it turned out to be impossible to entrust this to them.

During these searches, they found some office paper and a few spare pens for Dust. It seems he and Cross started communicating better with each other, working with the notebook and supplementing it with their observations.

Killer entertained himself by drawing various indecencies on the walls with the help of several aerosol paint cans. Horror also drew on the walls, but his actions were more practical and consisted of leaving marks on explored doors. Essentially, they were doing the same job, just in different ways.

Finally, behind one of the doors, there was a corridor of dusty brick, similar to the many Ruins of underground dungeons they had visited. Error confirmed that this was a transition to another level. He still didn't understand how to predict where they would end up, except through visual inspection of the passage. Along with his complete helplessness during his Loadings between locations, this drove him crazy. He had extremely high demands on himself. The only thing that slightly comforted his wounded pride in such moments was the hope and need for the gaze of others looking at him with a question.

Nightmare belongs to Jokublog Killer belongs to RahafWabas Dust belongs to Ask-DustTale Horror belongs to Sour-Apple-Studios Error belongs to CrayonQueen Cross belongs to JakeiArtwork

[almightyhamslice]

GRYLL COMPILATION!!!!

I didn't forget abt them I just wasn't totally sure where to place them since they're meant to be encountered AFTER the story concludes. They're not even the last drawing in my Star Stacker series though! Very close to the end though... just two more drawings left!

Gryll is an alien witch who travels through the cosmos looking for people to stack stars with! They always conjure up the blocks themself, so their 'playmates' don't have the excuse of not having a game board or blocks... and if others don't know the rules of the game, Gryll explains it to them in agonizing detail! Gryll strikes me as being rather long-lived, but also incredibly carefree and not concerned about their own mortality & just living in pursuit of fun! They might be the same species of alien as (or perhaps an offshoot of) Marx's species? The two might've even played a game together once upon a time. Gryll can be irritating when it comes to asking others to play their games, but they do care about fairness-- they NEVER cheat because it removes the fun for them! They already know they're the best player, but they want to prove themself in an honorable way.

Other than their fixation on star stacking, Gryll is also very fond of onions! Their three onion companions are named Sugar, Salt, and Pepper; Sugar has no leaves, Salt has short leaves, and Pepper has long leaves. I think for Gryll, cultivating onions is less like farming plants and more like caring for animals? Like chickens, maybe? Though the onions themselves are smarter than that, so maybe it's more like taking care of parrots or crows? Point is they're really common on Gryll's homeworld and they like to have a few of them following them through space at all times. So they don't get lonely! Though, Gryll does also like the flavor of edible onions.

Overexplanation of my gijinka design under the cut!

Design wise I did kinda base Gryll's appearance off Marx (mostly cuz they both have huge shiny eyes and are from outer space! Though notably, Gryll has invisible/detached arms that are covered by arm warmers, and no external ears (maybe I will remove Marx's ears as well?). I knew I wanted to emphasize that they have detached arms, but very clearly visible legs! Though I also wanted them to have more stripes in their design, so I decided they should go to their arm warmers. Similarly, I thought they could use more red, so I added a little red shawl. My gijinka design has bare legs since I think they're a very striking feature of Gryll's in-game design-- Gryll has actual legs rather than connected shoes or floating shoes, which not a lot of Kirby characters have! Their top is cut on the sides; it's more androgynous that way I think, and it's also a nod to how Gryll was accidentally depicted with actual arms in one of their in-game panels. I interpreted the lines on their face as whiskers/patchy facial hair, again because it feels more androgynous to me! And I think it makes them look cute. I suppose it could just be blush or paint but I like whiskers!! Basically, I totally overthought Gryll's design lol! I think it's because this is their only appearance so I don't rlly have room to redesign them! Unless I feel like it later lol.

anyways heres my funny drafts of Gryll! They used to have striped sleeves but I wasnt satisfied w that rlly.

They remind me of a Rayman character or perhaps Rayman himself? (has only played Rayman 1 and failed miserably at it)

[divine-misfortune]

hi void !! can u pls write some ghoulettes taking care of phantom ? nsfw preferred but doesn’t have to be !

Phantom wanted to hide. He wanted to hide his face in his hands or maybe even one of the pillows strewn across the dressing room couch. But his hands remained dutifully in place, fingers digging into the leather cushions. He'd been told to keep them there and he did not take the tone of Cirrus' voice lightly. More of an order, less of a suggestion.

His face was surely bright red. It certainly felt it. He was burning, internally and externally.

Somehow he was the only one the slightest bit flustered.

Aurora hardly seemed bothered. Even though she was kneeling between his legs, even with the head of his cock resting flat against her tongue. She seemed at ease. Heavily lidded eyes and pink dusted cheeks, relaxed and beautiful. And Cirrus was more amused than anything. Her long thin fingers wrapped around his shaft, stroking up and down at a leisurely pace. The other hand rested on the back of Aurora's neck as gentle encouragement but her attention remained entirely fixed onto the near purple head of his dick disappearing in her fist.

"How's that sweetheart?" Cirrus gave his cock a little squeeze and tapped it against the other ghoulette's tongue. It sounded wet. He felt a whimper bubble out of his throat. "You like her mouth?"

"Hh...Lot, like it a lot. Her tongue's soft."

Aurora's shoulders shook in silent laughter as she flicked her tongue over the tip, lapping up a bead of precum before it had the chance to drip.

"Oh I bet it is. Bet you want to use her pretty mouth properly huh?"

"Yes ma'am." Phantom nodded. He could feel his claws ready to pierce the leather beneath them.

"Shame you can't just fuck her mouth yet, we can't have you ruining princess' voice before the ritual."

"I know..." He bit his lip.

"But she was so eager to help you destress before we went on, sweet isn't she?"

"Very," another nod. He met Aurora's eyes and she simply batted her lashes. "Real sweet."

Cirrus smiled. Pleased with his response, the pace of her hand sped up. He wanted so badly to thrust into the motion. This had been a game of patience, he'd played by Cirrus' rules, and he could feel the reward she promised. Close. So close.

"Please ma'am, I'm-"

"You're gonna be a good girl and swallow for him, right baby?" Cirrus interrupted his weak plea, gently petting through Aurora's hair.

"Uh huh..." Aurora did her best to respond without drooling on herself or him. Cirrus wouldn't be happy if she made a mess of their uniforms.

"Go on, suck on the head just like I showed you." Her pale eyes returned to him and eagerly drank in the raw desperation on his face. "You've listened so well, you've earned it. Want you to cum in her mouth baby boy."

Cirrus' snuck her other hand in to gently cup his balls and his head tipped back with a groan. She surely felt them drawing tighter, and she encouraged it in the way she fondled them and continued jerking him off. Between her indulgence and Aurora's soft lips on his cock, he wouldn't last even if he wanted to.

She hollowed her cheeks and lavished the vein on the underside with the tip of her tongue and Phantom let out a sudden sharp curse. His hips twitched forward. Another few greedy inches into her mouth as he spilled over the edge. Aurora made a little surprised squeak that would've made him laugh if not for the orgasm rushing through him.

"Hell..."

The tension washed out of him in an instant and he went limp as Aurora pulled off with a little pop.

"Better?" She asked, rubbing his inner thigh slowly.

"Sooooo much better." He chuckled breathlessly.