#sorry for all the dark stuff in here

[giulliadella]

Speculative Biology of Euclydeans (and Bill Cipher) part 4

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Euclydean society and Bill Cipher's disability

Reading the first part is highly recommended before reading this one, since in that part I explained how Euclydia functions as a dimension.

This part is going to talk about disability, discrimination and eugenics of geometric shapes, so tw if you're sensitive to that.

Society

Euclydeans were intelligent, sapient organisms that lived in a complex society. From Bill directly, we find out that they had schools, jobs, families, social structure and developed medicine. This makes them seem very much like humans here on Earth.

We know that Bill had a family, his mother and father, however, we don't know whether those two were married. So I can't tell you whether the institution of marriage even existed in Euclydia. Bill never talks about marriage, so I'm inclined to believe that they didn't really have wedding vows, but rather, a pair would stay together because they loved each other and for their children.

However, Bill does talk about divorce. He sees his falling out with Stanford as divorcing, so it's pretty clear that Euclydean "marriage" consisted of a pair being together and deciding to spend their life together, but if they wanted to break up, that was called a divorce and they probably had disputes over who gets house and kids.

And when we're speaking of love, Bill claims that he can't see the difference between love and fear in humans. This is kind of true: both intense feelings of love and fear activate the sympathetic nervous system which causes the heart to beat faster, deepens and quickens the breathing and makes us all sweaty and flushed. Love in humans causes the same things to happen as fight or flight response and Bill is too dense to accept that there is a difference.

This, however, tells us that in Euclydeans, feelings of love do not activate their equivalent of fight or flight. Bill is a person very prone to angry outbursts at slightest provocation. But Ford can do a lot more to him than any other person before he gets angry. This means that love in Euclydeans is a soothing feeling. Love makes them feel calmer and safer. Hell, Stanford's mindscape was Bill's safe space. Now, of course, love in Euclydeans isn't all about calm - they also get excited. Excitement upon seeing the one you love, but expressed as happiness, with most likely slower heartbeat. Again, loved ones in Euclydeans are seen as a safe space, a little lighthouse in a stormy sea to hang onto.

Euclydeans also express love in a similar way to mammals: they bring gifts (Bill catching rats and arranging them to form Ford's name), they want attention from the other person and their affection, they share food and drinks and overall want to spend time and have fun with their companion.

But when it comes to anger, fear and joy I don't see any significant differences between humans and Euclydeans. Sadness is a tough one, because Bill expresses it by not expressing it. This man is in so much denial that he could flood the Nile. However, distress in Bill is more or less the same as in humans. He also gets drunk after break up and acts as a drunk person would. This tells me that sadness is expressed somewhat similarly in Euclydeans as in humans with maybe some tweaks here and there.

Bill is obsessed with The Great Gatsby, so much so that he dedicated a chunk of his book to literally citing the second chapter of it. This is a very concerning behavior (but, to be fair, most of his behaviors are). However, I believe that his obsession comes from a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity. When I look at Bill's attire I see a guy wearing a fancy hat and a bow tie which were a staple for evening dress of 1920s gentlemen. He also sports a cane, which they also wore. I can't remember much from The Great Gatsby and I'm too lazy to read it again, but it does take place in 1920s America. So, maybe the society Bill was born into resembled that time period.

If that was the case, the societal structures and certain expectations would have been rigid. Euclydia is very much based on Abbott's Flatland and, while that world is a critique of 1800s Britain, it depicts a very sad and bleak society where everyone has to fit in a role that was determined by their shape. In Flatland, Triangles were the lowest class, with isosceles being the lowest of the low and used as slaves and soldiers, while equilateral Triangles (like Bill) could rise in the society and perform the roles of merchants. Scalene Triangles were considered abominations and were killed as kids.

I don't think that Euclydia was exactly as Flatland. However, some Gravity Falls material point towards triangles being lower class citizens. I sadly don't have Journal 3, but I know about the page where Stanford goes to a second dimension and he talks about how Triangle people are low class citizens and Circle people are high class citizens. This is very similar to Flatland, but what about Bill?

Well, Bill was probably from a lower middle class family. Him wearing oversized shoes that were probably bought on sale or given by someone whose child had grown out of them, speaks about them being kinda poor. Bill was also bullied by his peers at school, but notably by rhombuses and trapezoids. These shapes were one class above him, because they had four sides. Better off kids bullying a poorer, disabled kid is a tale as old as time.

The eugenics policies in Euclydia were probably much less strict than in Flatland. However, if they were anything like laws controlling disabled people in 1920s USA, then Bill and his mother were probably forcibly sterilized because of his mutation.

2. Bill Cipher's disability

Bill was born with a disability - well, to be fair it was more akin to superpower - of being able to see into the "third dimension". Bill could see outside of Euclydean borders because he had his eye placed on the front of his face and not on the side, like other Euclydeans. This allowed him to see the stars of the surrounding universes. (please check part 1 of this analysis where you have detailed sketch of Euclydia in relation to other universes).

However, because of his mutation, even though he had much broader view of the universe, Bill was considered legally blind by his peers. Because his eye was on the front and he could move only sideways, Bill was seeing his home dimension only with his peripheral vision. He could make out basic shapes and colors, but not the details. He probably draws his parents as blue and red triangles because that's how he saw them. He could never see the details of their faces. He could, of course, recognize them by touch, smell and voice, but he could never see them as they could see him.

Bill also behaves a lot like a person with ADHD. Now, I have ADHD and I got that diagnosis when I was SEVENTEEN. My early school years were hell. If Bill does have ADHD, he was probably a problematic child at school and that just added more fuel for his bullies. The lack of control over his emotions and his special interest in stars were definitely a reason for him to get bullied, maybe even more than his disability. There were no schools for special needs children in 1920s USA, which doesn't mean that they didn't exist in Euclydia. But, since little Bill was from a poor family, he didn't get to go those schools if they existed.

Another quirk of his mutation in Euclydia meant that Bill had problems feeding himself. Since Euclydeans use their eye as a mouth, Bill had to eat sideways. Imagine if your mouth was on your back and you had to reach behind to feed. Bill was lucky that his eye was much bigger than other Euclydeans which made his mouth bigger as well. His parents also accommodated his needs - his mom was removing crust from his bread and he was also given his medicine in liquid form.

I made art to explain this more easily:

So, with Bill being bullied and rejected by his society because of his disability (and likely neurodivergency), there was no wonder he wanted to somehow prove himself. Talking about stars and the existence of something outside of Euclydia was considered illegal, but why? Well... stick around for part 5, where I will explain how I believe Bill Cipher accidentally destroyed his entire dimension. It will be fun ;P

@ok1237 and @unoriginal-starwalker I hope you'll enjoy this =D

PS: I hid Dipper and Mabel in the art! Can you find them?

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[98chao]

truly i love all of you and i'm so grateful for all the support i get on my vanilla milkshake posts here because i've just seen the way people talk about vanilla milkshake and mysticao on twitter and its genuinely taken 50 years off my life. now i've been reminded as to why i should never join the crk fandom on twitter

[liquidstar]

sleepovers save money on hotel rooms while on missions 👍

[bonkalore]

Sooo... There’s this newer show called Daniel Spellbound and this demon guy named Jayce Chinda in the second season, who I’ve kind of attached myself to recently and very suddenly, but I will add admit, I feel the show could have been much better and I’m sad about that. 😭 You can tell there’s a lot of constraints from budget and time that limited it a lot. It’s an urban fantasy setting with some cool concepts and good & diverse character designs, and whoever is doing the color keys for the show is on point, but it does end up feeling lacking in most other things to me unfortunately.

Jayce here sadly only mostly looked like the first few pics here. No tail or other horns. 😔 I don’t want to give spoilers, but it definitely felt like his narrative was leaning toward him having a bigger, badder demon form or at least something change, but he did not and I was rather disappointed.

So I gotta do it myself I guess.

But yeah, I’m back on my bullshit and have gone and run off with the AU stuff as I usually do and will say in advance that most of my fanart is only vaguely rooted in what was given in the canon if you’re wanting to check out the show and expect something else!  I’m just glad to want to draw something again tho, it’s been ages.

[maulfucker]

Yeah yeah jedi Maul au we've all seen him. But what about senator Maul au. Representing Dathomir, a neutral world like Mandalore that is still somewhat hostile to outsiders. Wearing fancy clothes that show a bit too much skin for the cold climate of Coruscant. Falling in hate at first sight with Padmé, the only other senator who brings a gun to the senate floor "just in case". The two of them having a weird rivalry because Maul doesn't trust the Jedi and is neutral in a lot of subjects that Padmé is a vocal defender of.

[thatonecrookedsmile]

"Effective today, you are dismissed from any employment at Joey Drew Studios. This is due to complaints received about the grim and disturbing subjects of your work. May your dreams come true somewhere else."

[Opportunity is always just a step away from you]

"Gent Corporation looking for research subjects. Pays three fifty a week."

[When one story ends,so does another unfold]

-Umbrella-

-----

My participation in an Ink Demonth would not be complete without at least 1 drawing that takes a few days to complete.

I've had this idea in my head for a while, so this prompt was a good opportunity to put it into action. Featuring Riley Wells and Alan Gray.

I don't remember if I've ever drawn a rainy scene before. This was a first attempt. I liked it, actually. I think it worked for what I wanted in the end. (Thanks old tutorial from 2004) (The raindrops running down the umbrellas I had to learn by myself. Probably not the best thing possible, but better than nothing).

I'm happy with the overall atmosphere of the drawing and how it turned out. I think I managed to encapsulate the original vision I had in my head. I kind of messed it up during the process but I managed to turn it around and get it how I really wanted it.

When it comes to Riley and her joining Gent: all things considered, it would make more sense that she ended up at Gent in a similar way to what Archie Carter talked about in his audio log. She probably found a newspaper about Gent looking for test subjects and decided to go with it. She may have met Alan for the first time when she started working there, no doubt. Rather than meeting him before she joined the company in a "he was the one who offered her the job" situation, as I showed above.

I only went with this second scenario just because I found it more interesting to draw. And I wanted to touch on the possibility of Alan offering the chance to work as a test subject directly for certain people (without saying too much about the darker details of the job, of course). It's kind of evil, but at the same time, so is Gent (shockingly/j), so it's all good. (Realizing now that I may be making shit up for a character that has yet to be characterized. If this isn't the Bendy experience I don't know what is) Also, poor girl, she was fired from a shitty company and went to get a job at another shitty company. How sad.

Also, as an addendum, I don't know if their heights are 100% accurate. My vision for my Alan design is that he's a tall guy. Taller than Joey and, for that matter, Riley. When I was drawing him I realized he wasn't that tall and I had to resize him in the end. And Riley I never thought about how tall she is. Maybe her height here is a little off-model. So, don't take this drawing as my definitive vision of how tall they are. Because I don't even know for sure lol.

Next drawing is simpler so it probably won't take too long. I hope.

[fantasticalleigh]

seeing so many videos on YT lately that are like “I read this dark romance book and i’m calling the police” or some condescending put-down derivative

babe if it’s not for you then put it down and find something new to read nobody wants an hour-long video of you yucking someone’s yum

[xbraveheartx]

So I know the quality sucks and we don't get any better quality to compare, but I just wanted to point out that, yes. Baby Carlo has freckles. Very few of them. But you can see the ones he had since he was a wee young lad standing out in his painting.

Go ahead and go into the game and stand in front of the portrait. Compare their faces. I'll wait c:

Here's a full/clean version of his portrait if you want to stare at it

So anyways like I was saying before--

[spidergirl-fibula]

listening to any music lately?

Trans women yelling at me, mainly

[porto-rosso]

brother where is the charles appreciation

[strongermonster]

i'm in the middle of painting my bedroom, which is going Eh bc i want a very specific colour, but the lightbulb colour + basement darkness has made this an annoying trial and error in paint matching. however, i discovered only now in my life that plain ol' black + regular old yellow makes green.

i didn't know that??? i feel like... i shoudl've known that. was i not taught this when i was 8 or something?? it's making me feel 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ that i didn't know? it makes such a good green too

i hate this bc i feel like it was something that—now that i'm looking at it swatched out—i'm like "duh yeah, that's obvious, you knew that." but i just spent 4 days in a paint-fume-fuelled mania mixing greens, yellows, blues, reds, coppers, whites, blacks, etc to find a Perfect Green, and she was there in 2 colours all along...

[seventh-district]

was about to lowkey pat myself on the back for having the most liked playlist for Big Red (YuuriVoice) on Spotify but. after further searching i believe it may be the only Big Red (YuuriVoice) playlist on Spotify 😭

[black-cat-aoife]

At least he looks go... No in that one not really

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

every post soviet family lore be like

[bobbydabob]

you are literally making all my dreams come true. seeing homestuck AND enstars, esp in ur style is a blessing ty for ur service

Thank you, haha.

I intend to draw a lot more ShuMika if I can honestly. They used to be my “OTP” and I was obsessed with Valkyrie for ages. I’ve really really really been missing them recently to the point of vibrating excitement. Homestuck is a no brainer though I have been a DirkJake fan since like 2019.

I’m glad you like my style, I will keep it up. Thank you for the ask.