#the dysphoria never stops help
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Finally made a Parapluesch OC, introducing Mama Oz ♥ (Patreon)
#Doodles#Parapluesch#Do I need to tag all of them? I don't want to so I won't lol#I can tag my original I guess :P#Mama Oz#She's based on this absolutely ridiculous and darling object I found at the same place I got my new-to-me video games haha#So apparently in the 60s this specific type of - magazine rack? in the shape of a kangaroo?? was made??#Ridiculous. So ostentatious. I fell in love immediately and had to make her into a Parapluesch#Like as soon as I laid eyes on her standing there I was like ''Oh you're from Die Anstalt'' - Instantly started filling in her backstory#Mama Oz's deal is your classic Stages of Grief - in her case from losing a child#Since she's a plush she never had an actual baby but she lost Her Child if you get me - she stopped being played with#And so she projects that grief onto others and adopts them in an attempt to get Her Child back#Except if this new relationship isn't within that framework then she rejects it and goes to the next one#She doesn't really realize that she's inconveniencing them by trying to adopt them and limiting herself from forming lasting connections#Not allowing change or growth - stagnating and trying to reclaim something lost#One of my favourite parts of Die Anstalt is that each of them is shown to have flaws#They still need and are deserving of help! But their uglier symptoms aren't shied away from#Dolly and Lilo use self-harm as a coping mechanism#Sly is shown to seek out the high at times and be short and destructive#Dub takes pride in his overwork#Kroko is surly and prickly#Don't even get me started on Dr. Wood lol#So it's fun to imagine what Mama Oz would be doing to - even by accident! - harm herself or others#The whole point of helping them is for them to become their best most comfortable selves :D#I also think what's especially funny is that I've been Meaning to make a Parapluesch OC for /years/ now#I always planned for it to be a Gender Dysphoria diagnosis since that's in the DSM and I had a design and route planned and everything#No. Kangaroo magazine rack. Okay#Lol
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can ppl in this fandom like... stop... implying that transmasculinity in hcs or (especially) canon is shallow or misogynistic or even transmisogynistic on princible, like literally just by being prescent in someones mind or in the text. like that doesnt fuckin feel good. thats kind of really nasty to imply. if its not okay to say about other trans experiences, maybe dont say it about this one either. why is there a weird little exception here. yall KNOW how much that sucks to hear all day every day. what the fuck
#my t#idk how to tell the hs fandom that every piece of trans coding in roxy in hs1 can be read as transmasc too. like transfem and transmasc#at the same time from the EXACT same reasons. its almost like we all share experiences just by way of being trans. weird i know#its almost like being trans rlly truly highlights what it is to be human and how we are all in fact at the end of the day human together#i just want everyone to stop trying to 'poke holes' in other fans trans hcs FULL STOP across the board no matter who they are#or what the hc is. its needlessly hurtful and more often than not trips into real peoples dysphoria which then#makes the target more likely to lash out. so the person poking them abt it can do a ''SEE? THEYRE ALL MEAN ONE OF THEM#WAS MEAN TO ME JUST NOW'' routine. its so obviously a 'im not touching u!!!' playground maneuver like holy fuck grow up#if you wanna fight for transfem/me folks right to just exist random fans personal headcanons is not the fuckin time or place#the XY in roxys name could be read as her having been DMAB or it could be hussie having a long running giggle about him preordering#his own transmasculinity. roxys colour being pink could be bc shes a girl or it could be compcis!!!#roxys desperation for a bf is from loneliness in canon but its often read as her feeling like she needs one to be a real girl#it can ALSO be read as another aspect of him struggling with compcis and comphet esp w/ his fantasies abt being 'a mother'#yknow what i never fuckin see that rlly highlights the fact that this is just a shitty 'girls rule boys drool' thing? theres like. no#discussions on the potential of roxy being any kinda intersex. absolutely none. he could be mtftm for all you fuckin know#but oh yknow being mtftm is A Shallow Read so we cant have that. hs is only for girls didnt you know we need to terf- i mean turf#out every single instance of queer mascness bc its Evil in the text didnt you know#god help the fandoms word of god token trans boy dirk strider for 'choosing' his eternal misery while everyone else is enlightened#by way of transforming into a girl. bc we must place girlhood on an inhuman pedistal of perfection and niceness and joy and rainbows#like what IS this mahou shojo brand gender essentialism???? im fuckin sick of it#can we remember that girlhood isnt & wasnt safe or joyful for everyone & that that can translate into how we curate our fandom experiences
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thinking more about being trans
#because i want the voice drop of testosterone because training my voice has not been enough for me. i want some of the body shifts with it#and i want top surgery at some point#half because aesthetics + dysphoria and half bc they're just inconvenient#but i dont want to be a “man”#i dont want the capacity to grow a beard or a bunch of hair and have to shave all the time to keep up my looks the way i want#i dont want to “pass” the way some people do#i dont want bottom surgery for sure and i don't have any desire to have a dick or anything. ideally i would be like a doll with no features#i certainly have no plans to stop dressing feminine#i like being my androgynous twink self#and theres certainly a lot of aspects of femininity i do enjoy#jewelry makeup skirts certain aestheitcs long hair etc#i just want to be able to wear those things in a way that i am no longer a woman but a feminine man instead#i want to be one of those weird 80s twinks who would steal your boyfriend while wearing your dress and looking better in it#or like half the men you see in regency shows with the long hair/fine features/gentle manner etc#idk. i dont want to be a man. i genuinely feel like im putting on the wrong skin saying im a transman#genderqueer/agender is the closest i think ill ever find#but god i just wish id been born a man and then had the freedom to explore looking like a girl#little fucked up freak femboy stuck in some body that doesn't feel like its mine#maybe going on t will help me feel comfortable with growing out my hair again tho#idk. spitballing#it doesnt even matter that much rn. i have to delay my t appointment because of other medical shit#but man are there a lot of thoughts up here that will never in any way make sense to most people or be accepted by greater society
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I want to separate myself from my physical self
#my physical self is really fucking disgusting to me#but i cant do anything about it#feels wrong and gross and I genuinely cant stand the way i look#dysphoria#fuck dysphoria tbh and yet#i suffer anyway#im going to throw up and lie down and assume i can get over it by tomorrow#honestly even if i do manage to change the things i hate physically#will i even like it. will i ever be happy#its not a self confidence thing but yeah i need some of that too i guess#i just hold so little love for myself#and im just. slightly jealous of people who can do things for themselves and feel good about it#dunno.#it doesnt matter.#never has#i just realised something about myself and physically what has changed. and it feels so fucking awful because i cant i couldnt stop it.#and it cant be changed now.#i hate it and i hate my existence#i am so tired of beinf like this#and i cant do anything to help myself#i wish i didnt have to think about stuff like this#i wish i wasnt trans lmao#feels like an empty existence#im just an empty existencd#this is like so angsty i apologise im looking to stop this the good ol conceal dont feel dont let them know 👌🏽
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I see. Today is panic, dysphoria and social anxiety day.
#honestly I'd be so ready for a lobotomy now#if it erases my depression and dysphoria I'll take anything#I'd rather have some deadly disease than having to deal with being trans for the rest of my life#i wish i could be as proud as other trans folk but no matter what i tell myself i just can't stop hating myself#it's not even the accepting myself part#it's all the shit i have to go through in life because of something that i never wanted#all the trouble and paperwork#all the hatred i have to live with for shit i didn't choose#it just absolutely destroys me that people hate me because i feel shit about my body even though I'm always nice to everyone#i might be bad at a lot of stuff but I'm a good person#it's just not fair that i have to fear for my life not because of something i said or did but because of how i was born...#sorry for this rant#i just had to get it out somewhere because i already know that therapy wont be able to help me with this one
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hate that physical activity and being outside is such an easy fix to a shitty mood for me bc i absolutely hate the sensation of sweating and showering makes me very dysphoric.... :(
#its also why i never wear jackets or layers even though they help me with bodily dysphoria and i like the way they look#i hate hate hate sweat. and i sweat pretty easily.#binding is a similar issue for me and its frustrating#like im big chested so it doesnt rlly help anyways but i still feel like i look better with it on#but i gotta wear it often 8 1/2 hours a day and i walk back frm college.... so ive just stopped binding#ok sorry rant over
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Matt saying there's no bigotry in the moderation team, and replying to people with "report harassment here!" is honestly so laughable to me cuz when I was known as trans-mom, I'd spend multiple hours a day talking to young trans people on the receiving end of harassment because their reports never went anywhere. From 2014 to like 2020 I spent a sizeable chunk of every day coming to this web site and having private conversations with kids and adults alike struggling with depression and dysphoria, which was often times really pushed to their limits by harassment campaigns by terfs and transphobes in general. This is how I first got popular, not silly meme posts, not smutty stories, I gained my popularity and my nickname of "mom" cuz I sat down and had to be the needed outlet of help and advice cuz Tumblr staff never helped trans people. The only real reason I stopped being so helpful and vocal is because by that point so many fake screencaps of me and fake call outs of me had generated so much hate I just could not navigate my activity or inbox anymore. I was there helping people with harassment but I myself was not able to figure out what to do when I was getting hatemail sent every hour, what I was supposed to do when nameless throwaway blogs suddenly had my dox and deadname (which I haven't used in over a decade), reports did nothing then, reports do nothing now. Matt just pointing people to report harassment is ridiculous, staff hates trans people. They always have.
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Yeah I love my binders but unfortunately I just have a body shape currently that doesn’t help at all with passing or…anything. My binders are usually crinkly or just a bit rolled up, even though I know my measurements and know that they are in fact the right size.
CAN ANY TRANS PEOPLE RELATE!!?
Do any other trans guys feel dysphoria when they put on their binder because you can see your chest underneath, like it’s not flat and you can see your chest. When I got my binder I was expecting it to be a brilliant thing and it was but idk I have mixed feelings and wanna see if anyone relates
#it’s so frustrating#like I’ll never stop using my binders until I get surgery some day#but I’m very worried that they’ll never help much in the dysphoria department :(#tbh my sock packer gives me much more euphoria whenever I’m out somewhere or otherwise!
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first of all, this is all legit, and not bait, though i have a feeling it may come off that way, this did happen to me. please don't publish if tumblr sends it off anon.
i'm a lesbian with gender dysphoria, and while i haven't had much sexual experience, i would consider myself a stone top. in the last year and a half i began reading "terf"/radical feminist writings and reading "terf" tumblr blogs fairly actively, largely out of frustration with misogyny i was experiencing IRL. though i never engaged with the community i did stop identifying as genderfluid and started understanding my dysphoria as stemming from the trauma of being bullied by other girls for having a high-androgen DSD, and using different pronouns/transition thoughts as unhealthy coping mechanisms. i'm happy with this, but i also don't know if i'm attracted to women anymore.
i've always been attracted to women in a way that's stereotypically guy-like; i find feminine women very attractive and not so much fellow(?) butches, want to penetrate with a strap on, don't like bush much, cursory interest in BDSM/daddy kink. i read/watched het erotica and porn sometimes and identified with the man. what i read problematized pretty much every aspect of that- femininity as a cage, penetration as violence/straps as disidentification w the female body, infantilization of women, bdsm as abuse etc. also, desisting making me more conscious of dysphoria/knowledge of how extensive sexual dimorphism is putting me off both women with larger breasts and hips AND smaller breasts and hips/unrealistically masculine body types as well. so a lot of what turned me on before isn't arousing anymore, or i feel guilty about it, and i haven't been able to find butch4butch stuff which is much healthier very interesting.
i consider my sexuality healthier now on a political level but my ability to get aroused/jerk off has plummeted (used to be i could jork it sunrise to sunset) and thinking about being in a relationship w another woman makes me feel uneasy and weird, especially since a lot of what i read emphasized reciprocative cunnilingus/tribbing (which i don't like) as the healthiest sex options. i also think about both my dysphoria and my sexuality issues 100x more than i did before, even though i was promised the opposite (freedom from dysphoria and feeling happier as a lesbian), and it's stressing me out day-to-day. i'm aware based on your general ethos that you probably think i'm a terrible person right now, but i figured it'd be useful to seek the opinion of someone who radically disagrees with what i've read on what i could/should do next, since i admittedly miss being at peace with my sexuality.
thanks for reading.
hi there anon,
it's a bummer that you'd think I would assume you're a terrible person based on everything you've told me here. I generally try not to consider people terrible unless they're actively being shitheads or hurting other people, which doesn't sound at all like you're describing. from what you've told me, you've been up to your eyes in some information that's made you feel deeply uncomfortable in your sexuality and now you're seeking out a new perspective to help you make sense of that hurt. that describes most of the people who send me questions!
it's so striking to me that much of what you're describing is very reminiscent of what's recounted in The Persistent Desire, an anthology of writings on butch/femme identities edited by femme historian and archivist Joan Nestle that was released in 1992. in various essays and interviews countless butches and femmes recount their discomfort with the feminist turn against butch and femme identities that too place in the 70s, when both roles were declared problematic recreations of heterosexuality and summarily decried as politically "incorrect" for lesbians. it's shocking to me how much what you've described echoes these accounts experienced by lesbians half a century ago - the disowning of women who are "excessively" feminine or masculine, the demonizing of penetrative sex, general insistence that there are "correct" sex acts that every lesbian is supposed to enjoy, and the deep discomfort and insecurity that this causes among people who don't fit into the very rigid standards of proper lesbian identity set forth.
here's a link to a PDF, if that's interesting to you at all. it's very long, so feel free not to read it straight through; it's a great project to skim and an incredible way to get in touch with the lesbians who came before us. their accounts of their lives are so wildly different from the boundaries of "good" queer representation that feel so universal today; in discussing their own lives many of these women speak very bluntly about their experiences with abuse, drugs, sex work, and violence. it's a great glimpse into the lives and history of a lot of very ordinary lesbians just living their lives, and I'm very grateful it's been preserved.
now, as for what you're actually gonna do: hey. listen. first of all, if you haven't given up reading this stuff yet, you've gotta. you simply cannot keep internalizing stuff that makes you overanalyze your own sexuality so hard that you feel uncomfortable about being attracted to women. that's not "healthy," that's conversion therapy lite. there are other places to talk about feminism without being made to feel ashamed of yourself.
listen: there's nothing unhealthy about anything that you described about yourself. being a stone butch, being attracted to certain looks and aesthetics, watching porn, wanting to use a strap and roleplay during sex and not being interested in other sexual activities - all of those thing are completely normal and, yes, healthy. certainly healthier than feeling the need to repress your sexuality so hard that thinking about being with a woman doesn't feel right!
should we run through that list?
femininity as cage - sure, okay, femininity isn't for everyone, and there are parts of it that suck. that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with women who like to wear dresses or put on makeup or shave or whatever, or anyone who's attracted to those women. genuinely I cannot think of anything less interesting or important to feminist organizing than getting hung up about what people want to wear. it's clothes, dude. it's fucking clothes. pick a more important hill to die on, I implore you.
penetration is not the same thing as violence. there's just nothing to debate about that one; it's patently absurd to pretend that every act of penetrative sex is rape and you'd have to fundamentally misunderstand how consent works to believe that.
straps are not about "disidentification with the female body," they're about augmenting a sexual experience. a strap-on is not more problematic than a vibrator or a massage oils or a pillow used to prop up a body part. unless those are also bad? are those bad? are pillows disidentifying from the female body also? I'm not up to date on this.
straight up I don't even know which part of your whole deal the infantilization of women is supposed to address, but a thing that I've always found interesting about a lot of radical feminists who are deeply distrustful of sex is the way that many of them seem to assume that women can't be trusted to understand their own sexual desires and need to be taught what's appropriate. seems kind of condescending to me, personally.
BDSM isn't the same thing as abuse. abuse, crucially, is not a situation that people can safe word out of or negotiate the constraints of. it's kind of like how, you know, I purposefully pay people to shove needles in my skin when I want a tattoo, but I wouldn't be stoked about it if somebody just ran up to me in public and started stabbing me without any warning or conversation. context is crucial. there can certainly be abusive people within BDSM spaces, but that's true of people of literally every sexual proclivity on earth, and certainly not an innate feature of BDSM. it's just make believe, dude. it's dress up. it's sex LARPing.
also, psst, hey. that thing about being attracted to women in a "guy-like" way? no such thing. men are humans, dude; they experience attraction in as many different ways as anyone else. for every dude interested in the same stuff as you there are men yearning for hairy women, muscular women, masculine women, women who will dominate them, women who would rather be eaten out then penetrated, and so on. to say nothing of the men who aren't into women at all! and, as is obvious from your own experience, men don't have a monopoly on those kinds of feelings, anyway! there are no men or women feelings, dude; it's all just people having feelings and fighting for their lives trying to figure out what they're into to.
I want to particularly talk about that last bit, where you mentioned not enjoying or wanting to engage in cunnilingus or tribbing. that's totally fine! people like different shit in all kinds of combinations - I'm personally a huge fan of getting eaten out and scratched up or bitten, but I don't do penetration and I've genuinely never met anyone who actually liked tribbing - and there are absolutely people out there who will, to paraphrase the poet Tinashe, perfectly match your freak.
(have you heard about the perpetual, critical shortage of tops that the queer community faces? you'd be a godsend, just saying.)
also, actually, hey I wanted to circle back to another thing as well: it's deeply alarming to me that whatever radfem stuff you've been reading has you feeling "put off" of women with wide hips and large breasts as well as women with small breasts and hips. what is wrong with either of those? both of those are just ways that women naturally look. women just look a wide variety of ways, and it's sad that that's upsetting you now. just thinking about this, conceptually, is giving me hives.
having been up to your eyes in all of this, I can definitely understand why you'd feel the urge to overanalyze you own gender and sexuality to the point of completely talking yourself out of identifying with anything that feels good for you. as I said, that's actually not healthy in any way, and as a sex educator I can't say that I think anyone genuinely invested in your well-being would want that for you.
entirely aside from their feelings on trans people, which I obviously disagree with pretty vehemently, one of the things about radfems that's most endlessly vexing to me is the insistence that such an extremely narrow range of sexual behaviors are appropriate. seems like a miserable way to live, and I sincerely hope you can detangle yourself from the morass of shame it's landed you in. you deserve better.
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when I was 12 I learned what trans people were, and it was immediately obvious to me that I was one. not only did I now have a name for the unbearable pain I’d been dealing with for years at that point (gender dysphoria) but I had a possible cure for it (transitioning). I was already speaking to my school counselor regularly, as I was a very obviously autistic child who was prone to frequent bouts of uncontrolled crying and emotional breakdowns. I told her I was trans, and she was immediately accepting, but with some caveats.
it was great that I was trans! she wanted to help me in any way she could. BUT, she frequently told me about her son, a gay cis man who wore women’s clothing basically all the time. he loved being gay and a man but also wearing dresses and makeup. and sure it was GREAT that I was trans, but it would also be great-and in fact EVEN BETTER if I was just a cis male who crossdresses all the time like her son. this had 0 appeal to me. my problem was gender dysphoria, not clothes, and my dysphoria was caused primarily by my social role amongst my peers and my ever changing body. I wanted hormone blockers. I wanted to be a girl. I wanted to transition. I didn’t want to “crossdress”.
she helped me plan what I’d say when I came out to my parents which ultimately didn’t matter. they were mostly just angry and confused. my mom immediately asked if I liked boys or girls. I said “both I think” and she almost fainted.
after the initial shock she got fixated on a possible alternative. maybe I was just a really girly cis boy. maybe we could compromise. I could wear all the dresses I wanted in exchange for never transitioning. she’d be willing to deal with that. I said no. I had next to no interest in wearing dresses. I wanted blockers and then hormones and I wanted to live my life as a (probably somewhat tomboyish) girl. but she insisted up and down for years it’d be better for me to just be a male cross dresser. in fact, that was the more “enlightened” choice. that transitioning was regressive if you really thought about it. and cis male girlyboy crossdressing was the more “progressive” way to be. she wouldn’t stop pushing that. and it never fixed my gender dysphoria. she is now a terf.
since the very moment I came out as trans to anyone I had people telling me it would be better if I was just a cis male crossdresser. and in the 12 years since I have not stopped hearing that line.
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transphobes & conservatives throw around the "80% of trans children desist" statistic, and it comes from the average of a few quantitative studies that did produce those numbers
and they're relying on people to not have the knowledge to actually dig into these things, analyze the statistics, and question the methodologies in a scientific way
if you're curious at all how to debate these claims when people bring it up, i've summarized a meta-review below:
the biggest, most glaring issue of these studies is sample size and participant selection -- Baer Karrington, MD opened up these papers and found that one of the 4 studies (yes, the 80% number comes from the average of 4 studies, as of 2022) had identified nearly 300 eligible participants and then selected 132 of them, and we don't know why.
it's normal to screen out participants for psych & medical studies for any number of reasons, but you have to be completely transparent about why you're excluding them - and the researchers never told us. we can't know if you deliberately or subconsciously chose people who would confirm your hypothesis, which calls into question the data you collected.
another study was unable to contact 24 of the original participants out of 77, and then automatically classified the uncontactable participants as desisters. this isn't good science. i'm hesitant to even call it science.
the third study didn't list how many participants were included, but the assumption is that it was 10 people.
the fourth study had 25.
and across all of this research into desistance, including dozens of non-quantitative studies, case studies, and interviews, the researchers give us different definitions of desistance
(wouldn't the most important part of a cohesive argument against childhood gender affirming care be a mutually understood definition of desistance)
included under the definitions of desisters are:
adults who decide to stop HRT for any reason. this includes children who underwent the puberty of their choice and then ceased medical intervention in adulthood, without ascertaining if the reason was that they were satisfied with their body post-treatment, or if they had or intended to de-transition back to a body reflecting their birth sex
people who may have initially begun as binary transgender but settled on a non-binary or gender expansive identity. one former trans woman is identified in the research as now going by they/them and ceased HRT, and the studies do not reach a consensus on whether non-binary identities are included in the transgender non-desisting category, or if it is considered desistance
children for whom medical transitioning is stopped at any point - with obvious difficulties around determining whether was initiated by parents or truly the child's wishes
people who never received medical intervention and no longer experience gender dysphoria in adulthood, regardless of whether they have socially transitioned, changed their name, or engaged in non-medical affirmations of identity
children who decide not to medically transition. yes, that's it. they have desisted by virtue of not seeking medical intervention for the way that they conceive of their identity
and the issue with qualitative studies is that doctors are specifically reporting on people who have come to them seeking their help, and while their stories are important, and desistance does happen, you cannot draw actionable statistics from a self-selecting pool of people
the bottom line is that we have a double digit number of subjects across four questionable quantitative studies that gives us the repeatedly quoted 80%, and this is supposed to predict how several million children around the world will operate - and that's not how science works
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Chapter 39 of human Bill Cipher is SURE he's about to escape being the Mystery Shack's prisoner:
Ford's confronted with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's a little bit too obsessed with Bill.
And meanwhile, Bill has found a way to reach his loyal cultists... if he can find somebody willing to help him make contact.
He thinks Ford is the perfect target.
Maybe, just maybe, the obsession goes both ways.
(warning for an incident of self-harm via burning, and depersonalization and/or dysphoria (depending on how you interpret it) re: Bill feeling even worse about his body than usual.)
####
Soos, Stan, and Ford had stayed up half the night trying to generate enough NowUSeeitNowUDontium to prevent it from vanishing the moment one of them lost (or gained) focus. They'd eventually given up and stayed the night in Northwest Manor. Soos had texted Melody around midnight, and she'd immediately replied (which alarmed Ford, but Soos assured him she was used to those hours) and agreed, with some trepidation, to spend the night by herself in the shack so that the kids wouldn't be alone all night with Bill. She'd texted a half hour later to report that the bathroom was a disaster, but the kids had reassured her it was just some werewolf thing, so, not a big deal.
Ford had thought getting to spend a night without Bill under the same roof would be a relief. Instead, he found his sleep was even worse. He kept worrying about what Bill might get up to so far away and out of sight, where Ford couldn't do anything to stop him. Surely, by nighttime, Bill had to have noticed that the only humans he'd seen all day were the kids? Would he consider Melody any kind of threat, no veteran to combating Gravity Falls' weirdness?
It figured that the dream demon would find a way to disrupt Ford's sleep when he wasn't even there.
####
Ford had given up on sleep around two in the morning and gone wandering until he stumbled across a den with walls covered in bookcases, massive windows overlooking the forest below, and a pair of richly upholstered armchairs turned to gaze out the windows. He drifted between the chairs to one of the windows. It was the kind of personal library he'd dreamed of accepting esteemed guests in, back when he'd fantasized about one day being rich and famous. He suspected the Northwests had never read a book in this room.
Ford had been staring out at the still night and the dark pines for several minutes when he heard the creak of a door and soft footsteps behind him. He whirled around, raising a weapon. "Back, you spectral fiend!"
"Whoa! Easy, Sixer!" Stan held up a hand defensively. "It's just me!" He lowered his hand. "Why are you holding up a dinner plate?"
"Er—sorry." Ford sheepishly tucked the silver dish under his arm again. "I'm sure I saw a ghost earlier. I thought it prudent to arm myself."
Stan muttered, "This place sure is creepy enough for it."
"Mm. It's built on more than its fair share of bones." Ford returned to gazing out the window, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry today was a failure. When I'm staring right at an experiment on which the fate of the entire universe depends, it's hard not to think about it."
"Eh, I wasn't doing too hot either," Stan admitted, joining Ford at the window. "There's only so many times you can hear Soos whisper 'Think about the miniature particle accelerator' in your ears on a loop before you zone out and start thinking about fishing season."
Ford huffed. "Maybe we should have switched places."
"Yeah, probably. I retired from thinking about science after I got your dumb portal running, and once you get your head stuck on something you can't stop thinking about it."
Ford laughed wryly. "Unfortunately accurate."
There was a moment of silence; and then Stan said cautiously, "Speaking of you getting your head stuck on something..."
Ford didn't like that tone. "Hm?"
"I was, uh... doing some light reading..." He held up Ford's journal.
A jolt of anger and fear shot through Ford. "Give me—" He snatched the journal back.
It wasn't until it was in his hands that he registered the absurdity of his own action; for the past year, he'd given Stan free access to Journal 5. He'd used it to document their travels and discoveries as a reference for them both; he'd even asked Stan to contribute a couple of entries. Based on a prior precedent of seven months, Stan had every right to look at Journal 5. Revoking that access now was... Well, it didn't look good.
Stan didn't immediately say anything. Ford supposed his own actions said enough. He tucked the journal under his arm with the silver dish.
Stan cleared his throat. "I think we're a little past the 'superhero nemesis' thing."
"It's not a problem," Ford said tersely.
"Not a prob—? Ford, you're letting him consume your life."
"He's consumed all our lives. The kids haven't been able to invite anyone over, Melody all but runs to her car after work, you ended up in a showdown with fae nobility—"
"It was just the tooth fairy!"
"Do you know how important a fairy has to be to claim dominion over all teeth?"
"Forget about the fairy!" Stan waved off the whole fairy topic with one hand. "Look, I'm not the one who's dedicated half a journal to talking about him!"
"You don't keep a journal, Stanley—"
"That's not the point!"
"—I'm just saying, if you did keep a journal, I think he'd have come up on more than a few pages—"
"But like this?" Stan gestured toward Ford's journal. "This is turning into an obsession. And not one of your normal obsessions."
The back of Ford's neck heated up. He wanted to argue that he had to obsess over Bill if he hoped to find a way to kill him—but Stan already knew that Ford had passed off that project to Fiddleford weeks ago. "How can I be 'obsessed' with somebody I barely even see? I'm avoiding Bill like my life depends on it! I talk to him less than Mrs. Ramirez does!"
"And you're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private!" Stan gestured again, angrily, at Ford's journal. (Ford defensively tucked it further under his arm.) "You're acting like a stalker, Sixer. Not that I care about him, but, I'm starting to worry about your head."
"A st—?! I'm a scientist, he's a scientific curiosity! I'm documenting him! I document plenty of things!"
"Not like this, you don't."
"There's a lot to document!"
"Including spending a whole page trying to figure out—how to draw his—?!" Stan gestured furiously toward his boxers.
Ford pointed at him severely. "You were just as curious as I was to find out how a giant eyeball and a sentient triangle make that work, don't pretend you weren't."
Stan grimaced. "Okay, fine, I'll give you that one. But writing a full entry about his posture?"
"He's not only an alien being in a human body but a two-dimensional creature in a three-dimensional body, how he moves and gestures could tell us about how an utterly unfamiliar species perceived space! Nearly all his gestures adhere to an invisible coronal plane, that betrays worlds of information about his original anatomy. Do you know that elbow thing he does when he walks—"
"Ford. You're using your great-niece to get drawings of his childhood bedroom."
Ford raised a finger. "That's—" Ford lowered his finger. Ford sat in a nearby armchair, put his chin in his hands, and stared into space. "What am I doing."
Stan patted his shoulder.
Ford slid his journal and the dish out from under his arm and settled them in his lap. He stared at the cover, then thumbed through the pages. It was obvious when they'd returned to Gravity Falls; the drawings of Atlanteans, were-rats, shorelines, and boats immediately gave way to page after page of staring slit-pupiled eyes.
"It's just... Bill is an ancient being, many times older than our universe, and the last surviving specimen of his own bizarre species. As both an anomaly and a source of esoteric knowledge, he's an invaluable subject of study. He's going to die soon, and he should die, but... between now and then, I don't want to pass up the last ever opportunity to study him."
Stan sank down into the chair opposite Ford. "You're listening to yourself, right?" He didn't sound angry anymore, just worried. "This is a guy who tried to kill us. He isn't a 'specimen' you can add to your collection of weird stuff, you know that, right?"
"I know, I know." That was exactly why it was so important—why it seemed so important—to capture Bill in words and pictures before it was too late. (It was funny, Ford thought, how Stan's very first conversation with Bill had been a murder, and yet he was the one who talked about Bill like he was just some guy; while Ford had spent so many years obsessively trying to find out who Bill was that he'd almost forgotten he was a person instead of a terrible idea.)
"When execution day comes and you think you haven't dug up enough of his history, what'll you do? Give him a stay of execution until he's dictated his memoirs to you?"
"No," Ford said immediately. "No, of course not. I'm just taking advantage of the opportunity to learn what I can, while I can. It's no different from your 'shopping trip' at the mall—"
"Hey!" Stan pointed a finger at Ford. "Watch it! That was strictly business! It's not like I'm attached to the guy—"
"I didn't mean anything by it! I just meant—as long as we're stuck with Bill, make him useful, and—and to heck with him after that. Right?" Like Stan had said about the scratch cards: why throw away free money just because of the source? "He'd do the same to us."
Stan hesitated. "And you're sure that when the time comes, you'll be ready to pull the trigger?"
"I know I will. It won't be the first time. I'm just glad that this time I'll be able to aim at his own head."
"Hm." Stan didn't look convinced.
Ford sighed. "But, if I think I'll waver—I'll hand you the gun."
"Is that a promise?"
"Yes, yes, of course. I promise."
But he knew he didn't need to.
####
Soos drove the tired gang home just past dawn, early enough for him to open the Mystery Shack on schedule.
"Soon as we get home, I'm going back to sleep," Stan muttered crankily. Ford—eyes shut, leaning against the window—nodded in agreement. Stan yawned, "And there'd better not be any nasty surprises at the shack."
####
Bill sat sleeping in his attic window seat, knees to his chest, leaning against the window, ear pressed to the glass.
Outside, Stan wailed, "My car!"
Bill's eyes snapped open. He smiled.
He ran to the kids' room, knocked on the door—"Hey, the bigger Pines are back!"—and bolted for the stairs.
####
Soos got the door open at the exact same time Bill stumbled off the stairs and collided with the living room doorframe. Bill grabbed the doorframe just long enough to steady himself, and then bounded over to the door, shoved Soos and Ford aside, and leaned out onto the porch. "HIYA, STAN!"
Stan whipped around to face Bill. "YOU!" He gestured furiously at the wizard graffiti on his car. "WHAT did you DO to my CAR!"
"Do you like it?"
Stan let out an inarticulate scream of rage.
"Oh, you love it!"
"You massacred it! I've had this car forty-five years! I've done things in this car I can't say! And it's never, never been so—so—violated!"
Grinning ear to ear, Bill said, "What do you think of the girl wizard?"
"The what?!" Stan circled the car. He screamed again.
"Uh-huh?"
"Why does she have a beard!"
"Go on," Bill said gleefully, "tell me what you think! I want the full review!"
"This," Stan said, "is the most ugly, hideous, terrible—"
Bill glanced back at a sound on the stairs. "Oh, hey Mabel! Get over here!" He gestured proudly as Mabel joined him in the doorway. "And here's the artistic mastermind herself!"
Stan choked on his words. "—b... beautiful, stunning, museum-worthy work of art I've ever seen."
Mabel beamed. "It's not finished yet, we ran out of some colors! I was going to add a dragon on the hood!"
Stan's face went white. "No no, it's... perfect the way it is. Don't—don't change a thing."
"Really? You're sure? I don't mind!"
"Really." Looking slightly nauseous, Stan said, "I love it just like this, pumpkin."
Mabel squealed and ran outside to give him a big hug.
Bill was fighting back silent laughter so hard he almost fell down.
####
"...And I still haven't found any sign of the Nightwigglers," Dipper said, sighing dejectedly and dropping his journal on the counter next to the cash register. "So, I dunno, maybe I should give up on this one and move on."
Wendy was sitting back with her feet kicked up on the counter, but she straightened a bit to look at Dipper's journal. She skimmed the news article he'd paperclipped to one page. "Oh, I heard about this," she said. "The cops talked to me about the first burglary. I was in the thrift shop that day."
"Oh, yeah?" Dipper pointed at the picture next to the article. "Did you see anything like this?"
Wendy's eyes widened. "No—but I think one of my brothers did."
"Wait, really?"
"Yeah, he was talking about it a couple nights ago. He said it was like an armless white thing wearing pants that went up to its face. We all thought he got spooked by a deer butt or something and made up the whole story. Then dad said we should drop it and told us we should stay in at night."
"That's when they come out! At night!" Dipper laughed excitedly. "Do you think your dad knows something?"
"Pfff, not if he can help it." Wendy pulled her feet off the counter and checked the clock. "I could show you the start of the trail my brother was on. It's like ten minutes by bike and the next big tour bus isn't getting here for half an hour, wanna sneak out?"
"Are you serious?! Of course!"
"Just promise you won't tell Gus if we find something. We've been making fun of him for days and I don't want to admit he was right." Wendy laughed. "Let me grab somebody to cover."
"I'll get my bike!" Dipper was already headed out the door. "I've been looking for a lead for days! I dug through half the dumpsters in town searching for their nests..." The door swung shut behind him.
Wendy ducked into the living room. "Hey Goldie."
"Yello?" He was sitting cross legged on the couch watching TV.
"I've gotta do something with Dipper, do you mind covering for a little bit? Just twenty, thirty minutes."
His gaze flickered to the TV, then back to Wendy's face. "Sure! Anything for you, cool girl."
Wendy had a brief, eerie sense of déjà vu. She shook it off. "I'm not interrupting anything good, am I?" She nodded at the TV.
"Naaah, it's one of those terrible specials about pyramid conspiracies." He shook a cider can, "I'm taking a sip every time they mention Fishmasons or 'ancient dinosaur-worshiping civilization.'"
"Dude. You'll be wasted before the first commercial break."
"Really, you're saving me from myself." He set the can on the TV and followed Wendy into the gift shop. (As he did, Bill checked to see if he had anything on under his hoodie. No? The Pines didn't want him to be seen in public in his hoodie; they thought it would make him "too obvious." He rolled up the sleeves to hide some of the brick pattern and surreptitiously tucked the hood and the bow tie drawstrings into the collar.)
As she headed out the door, Wendy repeated, "Just twenty minutes! Thirty tops. I'll get back before the next tour bus, promise."
"No problem!" He waved her off.
"I owe you one!"
Bill made a note of that.
He looked around the gift shop—any readily-obvious mischief he could get up to? He grabbed an 8-ball cane and took it to the counter. And then he took the stool behind the register, propped his chin in his hand, gazed toward the living room, and resumed watching TV through the wall and backwards. He didn't miss hearing the conspiracy talk—he was sure it was actively making him stupider—but credit where credit was due; they made those CGI pyramid models really hot.
A cutaway of one pyramid showed its internal tunnels and chambers. Bill bit his lower lip. Oh yeah. That's what he came here for.
Several minutes went by. The door opened and a lone tourist crept in, a middle-aged woman with a sun-damaged tan. Bill straightened up and switched his eye patch over to hide his bleeding eye. "Heya! Next tour's in..." He checked the clock, how long until the next bus? "About fifteen minutes."
The woman nodded and quietly started circling the gift shop.
Bill glanced toward the living room, decided he'd better not start damaging his other eye too, mentally cursed the tourist, and pulled out one of Wendy's magazines to read. "Let me know if you need anything."
The tourist spent several minutes making a slow circuit of the room, and then crept up to the cash register. Bill looked up with a smile, didn't see any souvenirs in her hands, and asked, "Can I help you?"
Hesitantly, the woman said, "The sun sets a deep blood red."
Bill's eye flew wide open, his heart leaped into his throat, and his breath hitched. His gaze roved over her exposed skin until he spied a tattoo on her right arm: four triangles stacked atop each other, starting with an equilateral and each getting shorter and more obtuse as they descended, until they'd reduced completely and a single horizontal line underlined all four triangles. This wasn't��quite the happiest he'd ever been to see the symbol of a devastatingly self-destructive high-control cult, but it was close. "Oh! Oh, this is—" He rubbed his temples, squeezing his eye shut. "I know this. I rhymed 'red' with 'pyramid.' Why do I give everyone a different code. 'But rises gold over the pyramid'—something like that, right?" Bill gave the woman a pleading look. "I'm close enough that you can tell I know what you're talking about!"
A look of relief washed over her face. "You know him." Voice low, she asked, "Is it safe to talk?"
Knew him? He was him. But he couldn't claim that without proving it—what would convince her?—telling her something that only he knew?—great, but what? Her face was vaguely familiar—he thought he might've given her a visionary dream once—but he had so many little worshipers and they were so unimportant, most of them blurred together.
So all he could do was say, "It's not safe. Everyone here is an enemy."
She nodded sharply. "Where can we meet?"
Bill paused. "We can't. I'm... trapped."
Her brows creased with worry. "They're keeping you prisoner?"
"Afraid so."
"I could get the police—"
"Everyone," Bill repeated, "is an enemy."
She paused, processing that. Bill's gaze flickered to the clock. Wendy said twenty minutes, thirty tops. She'd been gone twenty-two minutes. "Someone's coming any minute."
"Right." The cultist grabbed Wendy's magazine, tore a corner off a page, and grabbed a pen.
"How did you find me?" Bill asked. Of all the tourist traps in all the tiny towns in all the world, how had she come in hereand walked right up to him?
"We were told a devotee was here," she said. "Someone sent the address and phone number to the Bahamian art studio."
Bill's mind spun. How? Who the heck would know to do that? The only person who knew he was here who'd come anywhere close to any of Bill's other worshipers was...
Ford? No. Did he?
The cultist shoved the paper in his hand and turned to leave.
Bill grabbed her arm. "Stay out of Gravity Falls," he commanded. "But stay close. Don't go back to Death Valley." Between the sun damage and the tattoo, she had to be one of his Death Valley girls. She looked like their usual prey: disaffected middle class white woman, probably had a dead end job and a mediocre husband and a useless degree from a liberal arts college. Maybe being able to guess where she came from would impress her.
It did. She stopped and turned back and looked at him in amazement—and then looked at him, staring hard at his eye. "You're... hosting him, aren't you?" Her voice fell to a whisper. "No. Are you...?"
"You got me." He smiled wryly—behold him, electric god bound in flesh, how low he's fallen, but at least he still has his good humor, doesn't he? "I always said you had great intuition." (It was a safe bet. He usually told the ladies that they had great intuition. Most of them ate that up, and the ones that didn't were often a little too savvy to sucker.)
It worked. She inhaled sharply. "You are," she breathed. "I knew you'd be a woman. Oh, Mary's a fool." She said this like she'd just won some years-old argument Bill had missed.
Mary, as in Mary-whom-Bill-had-put-in-charge-of-the-Death-Valley-compound Mary? Ha. She was getting on in years; maybe Bill could start a schism, that sounded fun. He opened his mouth to say something about Mary having great leadership but waning clarity of vision—
—when the cultist leaned across the counter, grabbed his collar, and pulled him into a kiss.
Okay. All right. She was one of those cultists. Got it. Got it got it got it. Wow. Definitely a "mediocre husband" convert, those were easy to seduce away with a little warmth and affection—nothing obvious, but get them infatuated with the idea of an unattainable incorporeal ideal lover and they'd chase him to the ends of the earth. Maybe a lesbian in denial that Bill had decided to push further into denial, if her assumption about Bill's gender was anything to go by. He tried to remember what he'd told this one.
He leaned into the kiss.
He'd done this before—in dreams, in puppets—he didn't prefer humans, but he could handle them well enough and earthlings had such pretty eyes. And this body he was stuck in made such insistent demands; a surge of human hormones washed over his brain so powerfully it made him dizzy. She broke the kiss to murmur, "Cipher, my lord—" and he took the opportunity to kiss her eyelid and lie, "I knew if anyone could find me, it would be you." He wished he remembered her name. She tugged his face back down to her lips. She was so eager. Cipher, my lord. Oh, it felt good to be revered again—
The door opened. "Um?"
If Bill had had one ounce of his power, he would have killed Wendy on the spot.
Instead, he seized his cultist's hands, ripped them off his hoodie, and shoved her away. "Whoa, lady! What do you think this is, a kissing booth?!" He laughed angrily. "We don't offer that kind of service here! Either get out, or—or buy a souvenir already!" He pointed at Wendy. "From her. Not from me."
Shocked, the cultist turned toward where Bill was pointing; and then turned back, understanding in her eyes.
Wendy raised her hands defensively, grimacing. "Yeah, no, I'm not serving you either. Just... get outta here."
The cultist met Bill's gaze for just a moment, then walked quickly out the door without a word.
Bill shouted after her, "And do not come back!" and quietly mourned as, for the second time in as many weeks, he had to watch helplessly as he sent away his only hope of getting any action/rescue.
"I am so, so sorry," Wendy said. "I leave for like ten minutes and you get one of the nightmare customers."
How Bill loved nightmares. "Twenty-five minutes, but who's counting."
"Psh, shut up." Wendy reclaimed her post behind the counter. "I think she's been here before, she looks kinda familiar. You okay?"
Bill hoped nobody else in town would recognize her. "I think I'll live after some mouthwash. Terrible breath." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Hey, remember when you said you owe me one? You really owe me."
####
All his cultist had written for him was a phone number. Bill slid his stolen journal from its window hiding spot and copied the number down in two-tone dots and dashes. Plaintext transcriptions were usually tricky, given the vast difference between the language Bill wrote in and the languages humans used—but numbers, at least, were easy. Everyone had numbers.
And then he stared at the scrap of paper, reading the numbers over and over, until he was sure he'd memorized them, just in case he ever lost the journal.
And then he ate the paper.
And then he stacked the two cushions of his makeshift bed on top of each other, planted his face in them, and screamed.
Cipher, my lord. It had felt so, so, so good to be revered again.
His organs twisted with touch-hunger and loneliness.
####
Out in the Bahamas, along the southwest edge of the Bermuda Triangle, were two nut job hermits from Miami. Bill had convinced them that the only way they could purge their sins and purify their souls was by sculpting and selling golden avatars of God into which they could pour their guilt, and they had to keep doing it until they no longer felt guilty (and they would never not feel guilty; they needed so much therapy that Bill had ensured they'd never get). And then he'd convinced them that God's true face was an Eye of Providence in a top hat and bow tie.
Over the years he'd lost a little control over those two—in their desperation to be free of sin, they'd also started sculpting avatars to as many gods as they could find and selling them en masse to afford more art supplies—but hey, as long as his face was still mixed in with the rest, fine. Honestly, he was surprised those nuts weren't dead yet.
Somebody in this house had sent his location to them. And in a moment of what Bill imagined was stunning mental clarity, they had passed on that information to the single least dysfunctional pocket of Bill's top cult in the continental United States. Maybe when Bill was back at full power, he'd drop by the hermits' dreams to tell them they'd finally achieved absolution and could rest. Their decades of out-of-control scrupulosity would probably prevent them from believing him, but hey, he could say he'd tried. He washed his hands of all responsibility over them and their mental illnesses that he'd knowingly deliberately exacerbated for his own benefit. Not his problem.
But the question he came back to, over and over, was who had talked to them.
Bill needed to reach his Death Valley cultist. He needed a phone. Every phone in this house was well-guarded. No one would let him touch one... except, perhaps, whoever had sent the SOS on his behalf.
The only person who made sense was Stanford. Bill didn't think he'd ever told Ford about the nutty sculptors; but in the eighties he had given him the mailing addresses of some niche art dealers who would sell tapestries and statues of an obscure one-eyed god to collectors who could appreciate what they were looking at. Maybe Ford had gotten back in contact with them? Maybe he'd told them where Bill was, and they'd passed the information to the Bahamas?
Maybe Ford's feelings weren't quite so cold toward Bill as he'd been pretending.
Bill liked that idea a lot.
Maybe Bill's birthday gift had swung Ford back around to the side of reason—reminded him just how good he'd had it under a muse and mentor willing to teach him anything his nerdy little heart desired. Or maybe he'd always wanted to come back, and had just needed Bill to say it first.
He probably only pretended he hated Bill because they were surrounded by enemies—everyone in the house thought Ford was looking for a way to destroy Bill, what would happen if they knew the truth?
But the truth was there. Bill could almost seize it in his hands. All those moments where they almost talked like they were friends again, before Ford had to stop himself and leave. That one beautiful little word: jealous. And of course, there was the whole thing with the glass pyramid and the "Mysteries" that Ford had passed on—
—to Mabel.
There was another possibility.
As much as Bill would love if it was Ford, Mabel was the only person in the house who acted like she actually wanted Bill alive. Whatever "Mysteries" Ford was teaching her had something to do with Bill, the pyramid made that obvious. Maybe his lessons included the contact information of everyone else Ford knew who knew Bill? Maybe she'd taken it upon herself to call for help?
It was thin. And it was still dependent upon Ford harboring a secret loyalty to Bill that he was passing on to his great-niece. But that was where things stood: Ford was the only person in the house who definitely knew how to reach Bill's followers, but Mabel was the only person in the house who definitely might want to.
And he had to make completely sure of which one of them it was before he asked for a favor.
####
Ford had missed dinner again.
Fiddleford had sent Ford home with a pile of math. All the calculations he'd done to get the miniature particle accelerator to produce Dontium. By his reckoning, that there jar should've filled with Dontium faster than greased lightning; he just plumb can't understand why it trickled in like cold molasses. (His words.) He'd asked Ford to check his work, see if he'd missed something.
Ford was more than happy to help. It was a much-needed intellectual challenge that didn't involve Bill's underhanded birthday gift. Something that would let him feel like he was making progress. And it was comfortingly familiar. He and Fiddleford had spent weeks checking and re-checking each other's math in the lead up to the portal test, before they knew what a horror they were building.
As soon as Ford had gotten home, he'd put Fiddleford's papers in his underground study before going back to bed. Bill had already admitted he could glimpse the future, although Ford wasn't sure how far; and Ford was growing convinced that Bill's ability to perceive "higher dimensions" let him see through walls like they weren't there. He'd begun keeping Journal 5 and other sensitive materials down in his study at all times, hoping that the distance and layers of dirt and rock would keep Bill from peering in.
And when he'd dragged himself out of bed around noon—an embarrassingly late hour to get up, but he had been awake most of the night—he'd grabbed a quick breakfast/lunch, brewed a pot of coffee to take with him, and gone below to get to work.
He'd only worked seven or eight hours with a couple of reluctant breaks in the middle before his head began pounding too hard for him to ignore. He'd been neglecting his exercise regimen the past few weeks, and his back and neck were letting him know. In his thirties, he'd been able to work fourteen hours days and still want to keep going—and that was even before he'd handed his body over to Bill so he could keep working around the clock. He wasn't as young as he used to be.
He dragged himself upstairs after sunset, when the last ambient light from the sky still faintly glowed through the windows. He could make something quick and simple for dinner, go to bed early, and get up early to continue working. He pushed through the door to the dark living room—
"Hello!"
"Gah!" Ford jumped. "You. What are you doing here?"
Bill was leaning next to the door, a dim silhouette with his elbow on the wall and cheek in his hand. Even in the dark, Ford was sure he could see Bill's wicked grin at his reaction. "I happen to live here."
Ford let out an irritated huff. "Whatever you're up to, I don't have time to deal with it. Find someone else to bother." He pushed past Bill and headed toward the kitchen.
It would have been too much to expect Bill not to follow him, wouldn't it? "Aw, c'mon, don't be like that! Would it kill you to act like you're happy to see me?"
"Probably."
Bill's laugh made Ford's shoulders raise up around his ears. Maybe that was the source of his neck pain.
Bill shadowed him into the kitchen and leaned on the table, watching while Ford rummaged through the fridge. "But seriously, Sixer—who are you trying to impress by giving me the cold shoulder? I'm the only one here. You could afford to treat me like a person for two minutes." When Ford slammed the fridge door, Bill smacked it with the tip of an 8-ball cane. "Hey, have my food privileges been revoked? Give me a turn."
How long had Bill had a weapon? Ford snatched the cane from him, but opened the fridge and left it. "I don't consider you a person. I consider you an incalculably destructive force of pure, brutal chaos." He cracked three eggs in a skillet and opened a cabinet for one of the stove knobs they kept stored where Bill couldn't reach them.
"Flattering!" Bill started pulling out his usual nauseating array of condiments: today was sauerkraut, maraschino cherries, mustard, ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce. (Why did he eat like that? Did his species usually subsist on a mostly liquid diet? Was it the flavors—?) "Hey, make me mac 'n' cheese, wouldja?"
"No."
"Fine. Leave the burner on when you're done, I'll make it myself."
"You're not allowed to use the stove."
"Then how about I sit here drinking mustard while you enjoy a hot meal." Bill waved three eggs at Ford. "At least make me eggs too. Zero extra effort on your part. I'll even crack them for you if you want."
Ford gave Bill a dark look; but he supposed, as one of the people who had agreed that Bill wasn't allowed to cook, he was in no position to complain about Bill begging him to cook on his behalf. He snatched the eggs out of Bill's hand. "How do you want them."
"I haven't eaten enough chicken eggs to have a preference. Whatever you'll complain least about doing."
Poorly scrambled eggs it was. Ford shut the fridge and returned to the stove.
Bill sat on the table and crossed his legs in lotus position while he waited. "But really, what do you get out of pretending you can't stand me! We both know it's an act."
Ford gave him a tired, sour look. "Even for you, you sound delusional."
"I know you don't really hate me."
"I could write an entire dissertation and earn another Ph.D. on the topic of how much I hate you."
Ford hated how excited Bill looked by that. "Would you?"
"No! Why would I waste that much time thinking about you?"
"It seems to me like you're already doing that."
The hair on the back of Ford's neck prickled. Surely Bill just meant Ford's research into how to kill him; but his mind flashed to the miniature grimoire he'd spent all his time poring over—the blueprints of Bill's childhood home—the face he'd absent-mindedly drawn in his journal in the middle of the night and quickly scribbled out. Could Bill still see through that face? Had Ford remembered to blind Bill's eye on the blueprints? What about the eyes drawn in his human faces? Did Bill know about Ford's other studies? What did it matter—nothing Ford was doing was wrong. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Bill's smile slowly widened. "Sure you don't. You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. You might as well lean into it."
You're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private. "I am not..." Wasn't he? You're acting like a stalker, Sixer.
"Oh, Fordsy, come on." Bill uncrossed his legs, slid off the table, and was across the room faster than Ford had expected. Ford instinctively took a step back and bumped into the oven; Bill reached past him to lean a hand against the edge of the stove, inches from touching him. "You're not hiding it half as well as you think you are. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" He smirked up at Ford, exposed eye wide and eager, utterly fascinated with him. "And bringing Mabel in on it? I'll have to admit, that surprised me. Can't say I disapprove, though."
Ford couldn't tell if the heat on the back of his neck was from Bill's accusations or the stove. "I beg your pardon?" What was he talking about—their conversation in Portland? The blueprints of Bill's home? (Using his great-niece to spy on Bill, lord, what was Ford doing?)
"Quit messing around! The Mysteries, Stanford. You think I don't know I'm the star of that show?" He poked the center of Ford's chest, "There's no way you joined a cult, you're not enough of a team player! What'd you do? Invent your own cult of one? Mixed a little of what I taught you, a little of whatever you learned out in the multiverse? I know you were asking around about me." Bill chuckled. "You want to keep your little rituals private, fine—I think it's cute, really—just tell me one thing I've been dying to know: how much have you told the kid?"
Ford stared at Bill.
Then he laughed in his face. "You really bought that?"
Bill's smile immediately vanished. "What?"
Ford shoved Bill's hands away. "There are no 'Mysteries.' It was a joke."
Bill stepped back, staring at Ford, brows furrowed. "A...? No," he said. "She's got that glass pyramid—"
"She wanted it because it was pretty," Ford said. "I gave her one since I was throwing them all out."
"That's the stupidest story I've ever heard. Then why would she have brought up the Mysteries!"
"Because," Ford said, "I told her, if you asked about the pyramid, she should make up something to confuse you."
Bill's mouth was open, but no words came out. His face had rapidly turned red. Several emotions flashed across his face in quick succession, from shock to confusion to humiliation to a rage so deep it almost looked like disgust. For a moment, from how Bill's fingers were curling like claws, Ford was sure Bill was about to attack him.
But then he clenched his jaw, backed off, leaned on the table, jammed his fists down against the tabletop, and glared at the floor.
Ford turned back to the stove, grinning to himself. Some of the eggs had burned slightly. Those were Bill's now. "What's the matter? Did you forget that humans can lie?"
Bill didn't reply.
"I'm surprised you didn't expect it. I seem to remember we got you with an impressive whopper last year—"
"Shut up."
"Now you don't want to talk?"
"Now you do?"
Good point; he didn't. If he'd finally rendered Bill speechless, he should enjoy it while he could.
He'd have to thank Mabel later for inventing the Mysteries. Sometimes that girl could be genius.
Ford turned off the burner, put the stove knob away, and dumped the eggs onto two plates. He didn't even bother to keep track of which plate had the burned eggs.
He shot a quick, exasperated look at Bill—he'd sat on top of the table again—and dropped a plate next to him. "Here." He grabbed a bag of bread and looked around for the toaster.
Behind him, voice trembling but low and dangerous, Bill said, "Don't look at me like that."
Ford glanced back warily. "Like what?"
Bill violently shoved off the table. There was an awful squeal of sliding furniture. Before Ford could react, Bill was in his face, grabbing him by his turtleneck, dragging him in, forcing him to look up at Bill.
Ford's peripheral vision was filled with gold. They were so close their noses nearly touched.
"Like you don't remember who I am!" Bill stared down with wide-eyed seething rage. "Your muse!" His voice cracked, "Your god!"
Ford stared up at Bill, speechless.
Then he looked down.
Bill was standing on a chair to make himself taller than Ford.
Ford ripped Bill's hands off his sweater. "You were never, ever my god."
Bill stumbled off the chair, catching himself hard on the edge of the table to keep from falling completely. "That's not true!" He heaved himself back onto his feet with a wince. "You worshiped me—"
"I admired you!" Ford jabbed a finger at Bill's chest. "I respected you! I—I even idolized you, but I never worshiped you!"
Bill jabbed a finger back, "You're splitting hairs! You practically turned your study into a temple to me—tapestries, rugs, statues—"
"Because you said it would help me reach you!"
"And it did! That's what shrines are for, genius!"
"It wasn't a shrine! Not to me."
"You're kidding me! All the money you dropped on that gold-plated statue and you expect me to believe that wasn't an act of worship—"
"Do not. Remind me. How much. That stupid statue cost."
"If you didn't build a shrine for worship then what in the world did you build it for!"
"Friendship!" Ford took a shaky breath in. "I thought... I honestly thought you—you—were my best friend." The air in the room trembled with heat. They were standing too close to each other. Ford refused to be the one to back up.
"I was," Bill said. "I still could be if you'd stop being a moron."
Ford laughed in disbelief. "Which is it, were you my god or my friend?!"
"They're not mutually exclusive—!"
"You can't keep your story straight for THIRTY SECONDS!"
"Don't you call me a LIAR, after EVERYTHING I taught you—!"
"In all the years I've known you I don't think you've told me the truth ONCE—!"
Stan flipped on the lights.
They froze and stared at him. They had their hands around each other's throats. Bill had a foot planted on Ford's stomach like he was trying to get a foothold to climb him. They were both covered in egg.
Stan said, "Could you do this in the morning?"
Ford said, "Sure."
Bill said, "He started it."
"I st—?! You started all of this thirty years ago—"
"Guys," Stan said tiredly.
With some effort, Ford unpeeled his hands from Bill's neck.
To his surprise, Bill voluntarily let go as well. Ford snatched up what was left of his plate of eggs, took the loaf of bread—he had lighters, he could toast it downstairs—and left the kitchen, turning the light off as he went.
Stan was waiting out in the entryway. "Heading to bed?"
"No." Ford shoveled a forkful of eggs in his mouth. "Going to be up late." He was too angry to sleep. He could eat, take a painkiller for his headache, and keep working.
"More research?"
"No. Calculations."
Stan's shoulders slumped; but all he said was, "Suit yourself. Don't stay up too late."
Ford glanced back once into the kitchen. Bill wasn't moving. He sat slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees. He'd pulled on his hood. Its eye stared at Ford.
Ford wasn't about to pity Bill over a performative display of angst. He'd fallen for that already.
He returned to his study and mathematics.
####
Bill stared at his plate of eggs. He mechanically pushed them around on the plate until they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. He scooped out an empty white eye in the middle.
He stood, snatched up the plate, and smashed it on the floor.
They thought he was stupid. They thought he couldn't use a stove if it didn't have knobs, as if he was a child! The humans made it easy for themselves to think of him as a child when they treated him like one, "baby-proof the doors" and "no sharp objects" and "don't talk to strangers." He could show them.
He grabbed the stem where one of the knobs had been removed, and twisted. He heard the hiss of gas under the burner. Everyone was asleep. He could fill the house with gas. It would only take a little push to make a spark and set the entire shack ablaze. In the dark room, he could see the first glimpse of future flames flickering yellow-orange in the periphery of his foresight. No one would survive. Who's your god now, smart guy? He'd rise like a phoenix from his own corpse and he'd tear this town apart.
Where was Mabel?
Was she home tonight?
Bill turned off the gas.
He pushed up his sleeve and pressed the fleshy part of his forearm onto the still-hot burner. The pain burned away his jumbled anger so he could think clearly.
Who cared how the nutty sculptors had gotten Bill's address? He was making good progress on lucid dreaming; maybe he'd astral projected across the country to call for help and forgotten it when he woke up. He'd probably saved himself without even remembering it. It didn't matter. The important thing was that they'd received the message; and now, Bill had friends on the outside. Friends who were on his side.
If he could ever contact them again.
Bill would find a way. He didn't need Ford's help. "Never worshiped you." Ha.
He needed fresh air. Even if it wasn't safe to escape yet, he needed to breathe. He carried himself backward through doorway into the gift shop, pulled aside the curtain hiding the ladder to the roof—
The trap door was shut. He stared up in despair.
He shot a glare toward the vending machine, and angrily crossed back into the living room.
The air was so stuffy inside the shack. "Never worshiped you." Liar. If it wasn't worship then what was it?
Bill took himself upstairs. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. He lay on his makeshift bed curled up around himself, arms wrapped tight across his stomach, his burn pressed hard against a layer of knit yarn, thighs pulled up against his arms. It was a wholly alien position. It felt unnatural and bizarre. This body had curled like this of its own volition. It seemed like the only thing that briefly smothered the ache of emptiness and the hormonal inferno screaming loneliness through every vein. The loneliness wasn't his. He wasn't lonely. This body was.
Cipher, my lord.
He hated this body.
He ached to be revered again.
####
It was two in the morning. Ford sat at his desk, pages and pages of math scattered before him, glasses off, hand rubbing his eyes.
He didn't want to be checking a mountain of math like a human calculator. He wanted to be studying strange magic and researching new anomalies. He wanted to be digging through Bill's grimoire.
He wanted to be awed again.
####
(I've been waiting to write/draw Bill screaming his grief over not being worshiped since literally April. I hope y'all enjoyed! This is one of my favorite chapters so far, I'd love to hear what y'all think!!)
#bill cipher#human bill cipher#grunkle ford#stanford pines#gravity falls#gravity falls fic#gravity falls fanart#fanart#my art#my writing#bill goldilocks cipher#(*immediately edits post because i forgot the brick pattern on Bill's hoodie*)
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Nobody asked and yet you're getting it anyway, my Dess interpretation! Tbf I love a lot of other people's Dess designs maybe more than my own based on complexity/symbology alone, but this is what my original take for her was so I'm sticking to it. Extremely long list of factoids for her under the cut!
Dess hasn't seen a hairbrush in 8 years.
Opening her first fountain was an accident, and so was entering the dark world, but it was something she desperately needed at that point. She was knighted by Spade King, before being dubbed the Roaring Knight by the general public after she opened the second fountain and people started (correctly) assuming she was trying to cause the apocalypse.
Dess is mtf trans! She was out since she was 9, and took puberty blockers for a while, but stopped after she disappeared because she, y'know, didn't have access to them anymore. Strangely, even though she's been off of them for so long, there's very few side effects. You can just see her Adam's apple sometimes and muscle mass started building for her easily, but that's it. She's silently grateful that her dad didn't pass down any beard-making genes.
The reason why it's been so mild is due in part because of the effect of being in the "void" for too long, aka the space so dark and isolated you can't even feel your own limbs. She was stuck in the code of the game, basically, and it's had adverse effects on her mentally and physically, the only positive effect being less testosterone production in her body.
The physical effects are odd. Though she's grown and her body's age is what it would've been if she never disappeared, she's still in the same clothes she was when she ran away, but they sized up with her. The black nail polish she had on is still there too, not even chipped. As previously mentioned, her hormones are out of whack but, somehow, she's still clearly a grown adult, as if she just went through a very, very mild puberty.
The mental effects of being stranded in the literal nothingness are as expected as they are odd. The standard effects of not having contact with another person for so long have, somehow, never taken hold. It's like the social part of her brain was just put on pause. However, part of the madness she DID get was her very much considering her memories might just be made up. As if she was always here and managed to, somehow, delude herself into thinking she had a life outside of this place, when she never did. Essentially, she stopped existing, but retained some level of consciousness.
The whole "not existing for a while" thing as well as the fact that she's pre-hrt trans means she absolutely hates mirrors. Give her a mirror and she'll give back about a hundred shards of it. When she was younger she usually just had dysphoria over looking too boyish (hence why she never cut her hair) but nowadays she has weird feelings about something as simple as Having Knees (the existential horror of having a body after being formless in the nothingness during your formative years).
Her journey as the Knight was mostly about rediscovering herself, trying to find purpose and trying to help the people around her. She spent her whole life feeling helpless, and wanted to destroy that feeling, for everyone. Her violent behavior was rewarded by the equally maladjusted Spade King, and they teamed up under the pretense of helping all of darkner kind.
Dess set out to cause the Roaring, per his instruction, without knowing what it even was. All she knew is that, apparently, she was the only one who could, and that gave her a sense of purpose. Once she learned it'd bring about the end of the world, she was so detached from the world that she carried on anyway, not concerned with the life that could be lost because, god, she spent so long outside it, how COULD she know what life was worth now?
Dess went by neutral pronouns (they/it) as the Knight because it was another mask she used to distance what she Knew of herself and what she Had to be (kind of like Asriel calling himself "Flowey" in Undertale, actually). Being called "her" was too familiarising and humanising, being called "he" made her break out into hives and start killing, so she stuck with the alternatives for utilitarian reasons. Somewhere along the way she got sick of it and started missing her feminine pronouns, but decided to just stick to the bit anyway. The world was gonna end soon anyhow, who cares?
Once she's out of the role of Knight and back in the light world, you bet your ass she's switching back to exclusively she/her. Fuck neutrality, this girl needs gender affirmative language.
Rediscovering music, and specifically playing and making music, was one of the things that helped Dess get back in touch with being a person again after the whole Knight debacle. She plays piano and harmonica of her own volition, and the violin because of her mom's insistence, but her true favourite will always be the guitar. She was a little small as a kid so playing it used to be difficult, but now that she's an adult having it in her lap is easy, and honestly it just makes her feel alive. One of those dreams she had as a kid that she forgot about along the way, y'know?
Her and Asriel were just family friends at first, but when they ended up going to the same class together too, they quickly became best friends. They were there for each other through everything, Dess got Asriel into games, he was there when she came out, and they were practically inseparable. Asriel was a hard worker and Dess was a super active sports kid, they balanced each other out well and were known as the highest achievers in their class, the golden kids.
Kris and Noelle got dragged into their adventures basically on accident, Noelle because Dess was the one babysitting her all the time, and Kris because they wanted to spend time with their brother. They often spent time outside together because Dess loved being anywhere but at home. She didn't mind Azzy's house, though. Kris was a lot to deal with sometimes and Dess scolded them in a lot of the same ways adults scolded her (minus the hitting them over the head with stuff, what was all her). She has no idea the impact she's had on their behavior.
She was always kind of violent, but when she was younger it wasn't really an issue, more like an excuse to get her into sports. She learned to act out because causing problems was the only context in which she'd get attention from her very busy parents. With Noelle specifically, Dess took on a semi-parental role and quickly developed a habit of taking on way more burdens than she could handle. Even with Asriel as a best friend and the Dreemurrs as a surrogate family, the control her mother Clarice commanded over her life was just too limiting. It all boiled over.
Dess started lashing out at other kids around when puberty hit, starting fights and genuinely hurting people. She never got expelled because her mother was the mayor, but Dess started getting grounded more and more often, which meant less and less time with her only real friend, and more with her very dysfunctional family. She loved Noelle, but her little sister became another responsibility, another liability that could get Dess in trouble, it was way too much for her to handle maturely when she was only 13.
Dess "disappeared" because she ran away from home. She hated living there, but neither of her parents could admit that, hence her disappearance being so "mysterious" to the other townsfolk, they genuinely thought she vanished from inside the house. It was only after Kris admitted they saw her in the woods near the bunker that night that the case got more complicated, and the legend only grew more terrifying.
Her original plan was to just catch a bus to out of town and hope for the best, but when she ran into the woods in pitch blackness, she couldn't find her way around. She was too reliant on light, and couldn't manage in darkness. She found the bunker in her aimless wandering and, hoping to sleep off the night and make up excuses in the morning, she went inside. She couldn't have known that nothing was in there.
The effects of her sudden disappearance rippled throughout the whole town. Most obviously, Asgore got fired for not being able to find her and Rudy quit his job to be a stay at home dad for Noelle's sake. Less tangibly, Asriel and Clarice both started burying themselves in work to avoid grief. Kris and Noelle socially shut down for a few years, it's why neither of them have any real friends other than the strained relationship they have with each other. Asriel took on Dess' habit of "be anywhere but home" when his parents started having marital problems, and Kris latched onto him even harder to avoid losing any more people in their life. Through all this, Dess was nowhere, silently wondering if anyone even noticed she's gone, if her life was even real to begin with.
One of the strange things that happened to her while stranded in nothingness was almost being able to hear someone mumbling to themselves. When she called out, the voice vanished, only to re-emerge an uncertain amount of time later and excuse himself for getting startled. He just doesn't get guests often, you see. And guests get him even more rarely. It was refreshing to hear a consciousness separate from her own, but his mind was even more broken than hers, unable to answer her questions about what was real and what was imagined as he seemed to think he himself was a product of unreality. Plus, he never really stayed for too long and he never wanted to talk about himself either, as if mentioning his own name could shatter him to pieces.
The reason Dess didn't lose her mind from to his influence like Jevil and Spamton did was because she's just fundamentally pragmatic. You can throw philosophy and existential questions at her all you want but as long as she talks and thinks, she exists, which means reality is Something, even if it's completely eluding her grasp. It might also have something to do with her being a (homestuck warning) Void player, meaning the idea of the innate meaninglessness of life and unanswerable questions about reality itself don't really sound earth-shattering to her.
She used her knife to open fountains at first, the one she brought with her from the light world, but along the way she picked up a rapier and decided it was way cooler than a knife so it's her go-to now. She's not actually that good with swords, though. She uses them like baseball bats. Despite this, Spade King still praises her as if she's the best warrior they've seen in generations. It might've gone to her head.
Her relationship with King is fundamentally a mentor and a student. He gave her flawed information, but taught her a lot about herself, the world she found herself in, and the role she could choose. And, that's the most important part, he let her CHOOSE, because he was genuinely under the impression that she was just a really powerful darkner and not a lightner. His strictness and high standards reminded her of her parents, mostly her mom, but his willingness to give HER control over her own destiny is what made her favour him over every other adult in her life. Discipline that treated her like a valued person rather than an asset was basically unheard of for her until then. Plus, reminding her of her parents gave Spade the bonus of every time he encouraged her on anything it'd activate the "parental approval" neurons in her brain that were terribly starved up to that point.
From Spade's point of view, the Knight (as a darkner) is everything he wants to be, but can't be. At first he mentored her mostly as an excuse to live vicariously through her, but in getting to know her better he discovered they have a lot more in common than he first thought. Unregulated emotions, unresolved pasts, the constant feeling that you need to do More and Louder in order to make any kind of impact... he started to genuinely care about her. If/when he's redeemed, finding out the Knight has been a lightner this whole time might not even be that much of a betrayal. Seeing her face and learning her name as she apologies for lying is like reconnecting with his own wounded, younger self. Letting it be water under the bridge means he doesn't lose connection to himself again, doesn't lose connection with his best student. Plus, December IS a nice name.
She met Lancer, but didn't pay him much mind. She was busy with overthrowing the other Kings and was too tired to be a babysitter again. Due to her rancid vibes as the Knight (and the fact that she quickly became the favoured child even though it wasn't her intention) Lancer doesn't like her that much. She left Card Kingdom pretty quickly, anyway (Spade's advice to seek another worthy kingdom to grant a fountain to), so she never got much of a chance to get to know him, even if she wanted to.
Her relationship with Queen is even more fraught. Due to Queen's tendency to mimic the "mother" personality for every lightner she meets individually, as well as her more Explicitly Controlling tendencies, Dess quickly became rebellious and then antagonistic towards her. Queen tried to choose FOR her, to get her to open fountains on HER terms, and Dess wasn't having it. Yes, following Queen's instructions would've caused the Roaring much, MUCH sooner, but, like. Not at ALL in a satisfying way.
She has no idea who Gaster is. When asked, she'll assume he's a Darkner. If asked about the man in the nothingness, she'll shrug it off. Now that she's out, she doesn't know if he's actually real or something she just made up in her head, though she laughs that off as well. "I sound a lot like him when saying that, huh?"
Learning Asriel goes to college is complete whiplash for her. Her sense of time is WRECKED. Like, yeah, she can wrap her head around Noelle and Kris being teens now, but ASRIEL??? What do you MEAN he's not still stressing over chemistry exams and cramming for spanish class, and is, like, actually studying something he's interested in???? Unheard of.
She makes fun of him SO much for his little beard stubble, dude. It's all in good fun, but like, you can only be called "mini Asgore" so many times by your childhood best friend before it starts to cut deeper. On the flipside he has literally nothing bad to say to her. She nearly caused the apocalypse, but like, he gets it. He would've done the same in her shoes (hooves??). He thinks her Dark World armour is so kickass and he could never pull it off like she can.
Unsurprisingly Asriel has a crush on Dess. He always kinda had one, even when they were kids, but reconnecting as adults just Fully bashed him over the head with the fact that he's had repressed feelings for her and he has NO idea what to do about it. He's anxiety incarnate and thinks Dess already KNOWS he has a crush on her and just isn't saying anything because she's playing it cool, or doesn't wanna hurt his feelings, or thinks he's too lame to date or something. He thinks she's the coolest person who ever lived and has no idea how to cope.
Meanwhile in reality, Dess is a clueless aro/ace. She doesn't really know what having a crush even means. She thinks being a couple is, like, flirting and fighting behind closed doors (you can tell the only couples she knew personally were her parents and Asriel's parents), so she thinks it's just exhausting and doesn't know why anyone bothers. When Noelle tells her she has a crush on Susie Dess is like "Hell yeah, love is love........ wait do you mean you like her or you want her to crush you with a boulder" and Noelle sweats for a while before replying with "b-both?"
Dess has never been to Castletown. Most likely will never go.
Her and Kris reconnecting is a bit awkward at first, mostly on account of the fact that Kris and their posse are the ones that had her bash her over the head as the Knight to get her to behave in the first place, but Dess doesn't really focus on that. Kris thinks they hurt her, she just thinks of them as a little hero. Susie kinda helps facilitate them talking like people again, at least at first, because she has no baggage with Dess other than hitting her with an ax over dark fountains and getting stabbed in return, but like... Out of all the people they fought Dess is the only one who actually said sorry for being a jackass, so it's all good in Susie's book. Kris is just happy to have Dess back, man, that bunker and their memory of it has been haunting them for entirely too long, now.
Like Kris and Asriel, Dess learned how to play piano in church. Unlike them, and unlike Noelle, Dess has actually become fully agnostic after her time in the void. If there IS an angel looking out for her, it certainly isn't one that could've helped her, so what's the point of worship? Plus, Asriel and Noelle are two angels looking out for her as is! Why add divinity to that? (I am extremely subtle, I know.)
To this day, she's still apologising to Asgore for getting him fired. He is still apologising for not being able to find her. It's a pity party.
No-one tell her parents but she smokes weed. Once she reformed from being the Knight, she had a lot on her mind, man, weed is the most harmless thing she could've taken to cope. Seam is a good dealer, they have the good stuff.
She's absolutely called King "dad" by accident before. He doesn't really mind. No-one tell Rudy though, he's gonna be pissed.
On that note, I feel the need to add that she was never as close to him as Noelle was, because he only really started being an active parent after Dess went missing. It's kinda tragic, and he feels REALLY guilty about it, but if he ever verbalises that guilt he's gonna actually crumble into dust. His confidence is all a mask as is, actually admitting that he was kind of garbage at being a dad with his first kid is just gonna make it so much worse. But, until Dess hears an apology, she's not really gonna be able to actually mend their relationship, so they're at an impasse.
Inversely, her time away from the light world kinda made Dess forget the way her mother acts. She sorta got a bit of "once away from the abuser you forget the abuse", especially knowing she herself was a kid when it all happened so she kinda started justifying her mother's actions to herself when away from her. After like 2 weeks of living with her again Dess fully remembers why she ran away and packs her bags to live literally anywhere else. Preferably with King if that's an option, though that might just make Lancer move out as well.
She doesn't know what minecraft is.
#deltarune#drawings#deltarune art#utdr#dess#dess holiday#december#december holiday#deltarune dess#dess deltarune#noelle#noelle holiday#noelle deltarune#mayor holiday#rudy holiday#rudolph holiday#rudy deltarune#kris#kris dreemurr#kris deltarune#asriel#asriel dreemurr#is this really the first time i tagged him in something lmao#king spade#king of spades#spade#spade king#queen deltarune#deltarune queen#cyber queen
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By: Chloe Cole
Published: July 28, 2023
On Thursday, her 19th birthday, Chloe Cole testified to Congress with a “final warning” that medical treatments to change the gender of confused children is horrific. Cole, who was given surgery as a teenager to become male and soon regretted it, said what she needed most was therapy, not a scalpel. Here is what she told lawmakers:
My name is Chloe Cole and I am a de-transitioner.
Another way to put that would be: I used to believe that I was born in the wrong body and the adults in my life, whom I trusted, affirmed my belief, and this caused me lifelong, irreversible harm.
I speak to you today as a victim of one of the biggest medical scandals in the history of the United States of America.
I speak to you in the hope that you will have the courage to bring the scandal to an end, and ensure that other vulnerable teenagers, children and young adults don’t go through what I went through.
Deceit & coercion
At the age of 12, I began to experience what my medical team would later diagnose as gender dysphoria.
I was well into an early puberty, and I was very uncomfortable with the changes that were happening to my body. I was intimidated by male attention.
And when I told my parents that I felt like a boy, in retrospect, all I meant was that I hated puberty, that I wanted this newfound sexual tension to go away.
I looked up to my brothers a little bit more than I did to my sisters.
I came out as transgender in a letter I sent on the dining room table.
My parents were immediately concerned.
They felt like they needed to get outside help from medical professionals.
But this proved to be a mistake.
It immediately set our entire family down a path of ideologically motivated deceit and coercion.
The general specialist I was taken to see told my parents that I needed to be put on puberty-blocking drugs right away.
They asked my parents a simple question: Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living transgender son?
The choice was enough for my parents to let their guard down, and in retrospect, I can’t blame them.
This is the moment that we all became victims of so-called gender-affirming care.
I was fast-tracked onto puberty blockers and then testosterone.
The resulting menopausal-like hot flashes made focusing on school impossible.
I still get joint pains and weird pops in my back.
But they were far worse when I was on the blockers.
Forever changed
A month later, when I was 13, I had my first testosterone injection.
It has caused permanent changes in my body: My voice will forever be deeper, my jawline sharper, my nose longer, my bone structure permanently masculinized, my Adam’s apple more prominent, my fertility unknown.
I look in the mirror sometimes, and I feel like a monster.
I had a double mastectomy at 15.
They tested my amputated breasts for cancer.
That was cancer-free, of course; I was perfectly healthy.
There is nothing wrong with my still-developing body, or my breasts other than that, as an insecure teenage girl, I felt awkward about it.
After my breasts were taken away from me, the tissue was incinerated — before I was able to legally drive.
I had a huge part of my future womanhood taken from me.
I will never be able to breastfeed.
I struggle to look at myself in the mirror at times.
I still struggle to this day with sexual dysfunction.
And I have massive scars across my chest and the skin grafts that they used, that they took of my nipples, are weeping fluid today, and they’re grafted into a more masculine positioning, they said.
After surgery, my grades in school plummeted.
Everything that I went through did nothing to address the underlying mental health issues that I had.
And my doctors with their theories on gender that all my problems would go away as soon as I was surgically transformed into something that vaguely resembled a boy — their theories were wrong.
The drugs and surgeries changed my body, but they did not and could not change the basic reality that I am, and forever will be, a female.
Depths of despair
When my specialists first told my parents they could have a dead daughter or a live transgender son, I wasn’t suicidal.
I was a happy child who struggled because she was different.
However at 16, after my surgery, I did become suicidal.
I’m doing better now, but my parents almost got the dead daughter promised to them by my doctors.
My doctor had almost created the very nightmare they said they were trying to avoid.
So what message do I want to bring to American teenagers and their families?
I didn’t need to be lied to.
I needed compassion.
I needed to be loved.
I needed to be given therapy that helped me work through my issues, not affirmed my delusion that by transforming into a boy, it would solve all my problems.
We need to stop telling 12-year-olds that they were born wrong, that they are right to reject their own bodies and feel uncomfortable with their own skin.
We need to stop telling children that puberty is an option, that they can choose what kind of puberty they will go through, just like they can choose what clothes to wear or what music to listen to.
Pseudoscience
Puberty is a rite of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be mitigated.
Today, I should be at home with my family celebrating my 19th birthday.
Instead, I’m making a desperate plea to my elected representatives.
Learn the lessons from other medical scandals, like the opioid crisis.
Recognize that doctors are human, too, and sometimes they are wrong.
My childhood was ruined along with thousands of de-transitioners that I know through our networks.
This needs to stop. You alone can stop it.
Enough children have already been victimized by this barbaric pseudoscience.
Please let me be your final warning.
Thank you.
Might as well call her a murtad and kufr.
"The medical industry mutilated me, maybe don't mutilate other kids," shouldn't require bravery or renouncing an ideology.
Reminder: A minor under the age of 18 is too young to agree to a cellphone contract. 🤦♀️
#Chloe Cole#detrans#detransition#gender ideology#queer theory#medical malpractice#medical scandal#medical mutilation#gender affirming#gender affirming care#affirmation model#double mastectomy#gender cult#sex trait modification#genderwang#religion is a mental illness
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Can you do (separate scenarios of course <3)Bachira, Nagi, Chigiri, and whoever else you’d like to add in a scenario where their chubby and soft girlfriend tries her hardest not to be insecure about her body but the insecurity really sneaks up on her a lot? So like, when the bfs find out, not only do they comfort her, but they show her just how much they love and adore her body if you catch my drift <3 Thank you so much!!
ENDLESS ADORATION
ft. bachira meguru, nagi seishiro, chigiri hyoma, barou shoei
content warnings ─── body insecurities, self-loathing, body dysphoria, smut, mean barou, implied fingering, degradation.
notes. i'm so sorry it took so long nonnie. it wasn't deleted or anything but i hope you like it, nonnie. thank you for requesting!
ᝰ synopsis .ᐟ don't ever let them catch you being insecure about your body, they had plenty of ways to show you how much they adore your body and you.
BACHIRA MEGURU
“you could be so mean to me, baby.” he whispers. his hands roaming all over to the expanse of your soft body. his bright yellow eyes glowing more than ever at its reflection in the mirror.
he got you trapped from his grip. his arms snaking to your soft middle while his jaw rests on your shoulder. caught in the middle of you criticizing yourself and bachira wouldn't allow that. “how selfish.” he mutters. his teeth grazing at the shell of your ear and it sends the slightest of tremors throughout your body.
you can't help but to tear up a bit. “h—how am i selfish, megu?” you stammer. avoiding your reflection at the large mirror in front of you. you don't want to see yourself nor catch him staring at you with those round eyes of his. so full of life, enthusiasm. confidence. a thing that you will never attain.
“you're selfish for hating, keeping this body that is mine. who gave you that idea, hmm? it's not your place to judge this body that i dearly love and its owner.” he hums, chuckling that it reverberates to your skin and to your aching core. his palm gliding through your stomach lifting the pesky clothing to reveal the stomach that's far from being leaned nor toned. it is round, the excess fat protruding giving you the impression of a pouch but bachira could careless about it. his fingers sinking to the soft flesh, like paws of cat kneading and pressing the fleshiness of your skin.
“what if this cute stomach of yours is flat? i couldn't hold it. what i am going to do with my hands...” he mutters, pinching your stomach then his fingers glides through the skin of your thighs. “this thighs of yours, how is it going to crush me if this isn't that thick, warm me even. so selfish.” prying your thighs open and his hand settles to the mound between them. slender and nimble fingers brushing through your panties. rubbing your slit and a huge grin plastered in his face when the wetness of your fat pussy began to drench your panties.
“don't be mean to this body of mine, baby. perhaps i'll show you what i'm capable of to make those silly ideas forming in your head disappear.” he says, pressing a chaste kiss to your round cheek.
“i hope you can take me cause i ain't stopping.” bachira's eyes glowing more than ever and you know what it means when he get this riled up. his grin wider and you braced yourself. you know it all too well and you accepted it.
those thoughts of yours wouldn't be visiting you anytime soon after bachira had fucked you into oblivion.
NAGI SEISHIRO
nagi isn't insecure.
the word is foreign to him and the feeling of it. he's lazy, unmotivated and such unwanted thoughts isn't welcome and worth worrying over. why would he bother with such thing when in the first he didn't care. that's what he thought until he met you.
his soft, chubby girlfriend who had been nothing but loving and supporting to him. nagi didn't quite the gist when he caught you staring at yourself in the mirror with a frown in your lips. he only looks at you briefly before going back to his console. paying it no mind since when did nagi felt of being insecure.
then it began to affect him and yours. mostly yours. when you began to push his affections.
“seishiro, not now please.” your voice coming in a low whisper. gently pushing your white haired boyfriend in his head. shifting into more of a comfortable position in your bed. nagi groans, lips curling into a frown. a rare occurrence of him. he doesn't get upset since he don't like giving things the benefit of his time when he can give it to something more important.
he doesn't stop though. his huge build hovering above yours before putting his whole weight to yours. “sei!” you scolded him but nagi didn't listen burying his face in to your neck. nuzzling like a cat, he's almost purring from it.
he shakes his head. interlocking his fingers with yours. placing it beside yours and you were left powerless against your boyfriend's overwhelming strength. his lips finding refuge in your neck, tongue moving to lick the soft spot of your neck.
this isn't nagi who would make an effort to go down in you. well, at times when he's feeling it. the need to show you how much he loves you.
“pretty.” he murmurs. his hand now holding your thigh even though his large palm engulfs the majority of your thigh it wasn't enough to cover how big it was. placing it beside his torso grind his bulge to your cunt. “i always need you, want you.” he says. pressing a sloppy, lazy kiss to your lips.
nagi isn't good at words but he's willing to try for his soft, chubby girlfriend. it would be troublesome if he can't get his girl out of those thoughts of hers.
CHIGIRI HYOMA
chigiri's blessed with his looks that every people that within his eyesight cranes their neck to marvel at his looks. it didn't matter that he was rather feminine than other girls and he gets teased a lot by the guys around him. he just take after his mother.
there's no time to feel inadequate at things let alone how he perceive himself. he couldn't remember when the last time he felt insecure or been really insecure about himself and then he fell in love with you or it is that how being in love is. he have you and he was contented at that and being with you. he has to fight the battles that dwells inside you and chigiri isn't good at it. comforting another human being even it is his significant other.
so he tries. sees your eyes brimming with tears whenever he calls you pretty and he's confused.
“i'm not chigiri! look at you, you're beautiful and i'm not, you're lying.” he was taken aback at your outburst at him but he is quick to wipe your tears away while he whispers the very words that comforts you.
his sweet, crybaby.
“so, i am but you will always be my pretty baby.” brushing the loose strands of his reddish pink hair to see you better. he kisses you desperately like you were the air to fill his lungs to breathe again and you both stared at each other. he smirks when he sees you're already in a daze. mind spinning and only you can think is him.
his nimble fingers working through the garment of your panties. toying with hem before pulling at it downward to show that pretty pussy he's deprived of.
so he pumps his finger full in in your sopping hole. watch as it drips with slick coating his fingers. hear that delicious squelch while he stretches you. his ego inflating the more he hears you moan, call his name in the same breathy way that got you begging from him. all your insecurities dissipating like bubbles from the way his fingers stretches you out. he could do this forever.
wait until he fucks you dumb. you will forget those stupid insecurities along with your name.
BAROU SHOEI
barou doesn't play nice nor comfort you with those silly, sweet words that one needs to hear when in a struggle of battling with themselves. he simply doesn't need to play nice and comfort you and what only to question it again.
his actions says otherwise. he got you on all fours, your ass raised in a position you never knew you could. his hands gripping your round stomach so tight while he pounds you from the back. it is relentless. the groans and the moans mixing with one another while you hold tightly in his muscular arms his other hand cupping your jaw. forcing you to look in the mirror.
“you are nothing but my cocksleeve.” he says in between grunts. his red eyes glimmering, peering at his girlfriend who is currently sobbing, moaning like a broken record while tears streamed down at her round face. you whimper at what he just called you.
“you are. there's no denial in that. look at you, crying a baby and yet your pussy squeezing me like a whore.” the words stung and he spoke it the way he means it and barou isn't known to lie. his tongue made of barbed wires that is meant to hurt, talk about how awful everyone and you believed it that you are his own for him to use. your cries a little louder and thick droplets of your tears falling from your eyes.
it's funny how his words hurt you and it works like magic forgetting your earlier dilemma of hating yourself, of hating the body you live with.
you let him. bruise your body with his thrusts, with his touch. if this is the only way to forget everything so be it.
and so he did. he breathes in your cheek. growling at the way your cunt clenches tightly around him. you did feel so good to him. he cups your jaw harder, squishing it with much strength that you can't speak. your body reeling in sensitivity that you failed to notice how he pays attention to your soft bits. particularly to the parts where it leaves you frowning and he loves every part of you.
that's why he gives them the love, the care that you will never bother to give but available to scrutinize and he's filling out that so one day, you'll stop looking at them that they've wronged you and barou isn't the one to get mushy. he is still the hotheaded, competitive, bulky man that would not admit he loves you but his actions tells another story.
with the tight squeeze of your cunt around him, he finally reaches his high. yours and his orgasm hurling at you both that he can't help but to bite your shoulder and you — only a broken moan that music to his ears.
if this is the only way to shut you up and comfort, he'll do it over and over again until you can't speak no more and your eyes are brimmed with tears.
#♱ ⋮ shai's works⸝⸝#chubby reader#blue lock scenarios#blue lock x reader#blue lock smut#blue lock#blue lock x chubby reader#bachira x reader#blue lock bachira#bachira meguru#nagi seishiro x reader#nagi seishiro#nagi x reader#chigiri x reader#chigiri hyoma#blue lock barou#barou shoei#barou shouei#barou x reader
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Peak Moonwater dynamic is the two most emotionally closed off and introverted people ever who channel their lack of connection and inner turmoil into their art being each others muses, and usually they don’t even mean for it to happen or for the other to find out.
Like imagine Photographer Remus and Regulus, who knows he’s attractive but has never actually felt beautiful because his self esteem eats itself whole in a never ending cycle and dysphoria goes crazy. In a nonmagic AU, this leads him to be extremely camera shy out of genuine fear of immortalizing a face he views as not himself at the worst or just wrong looking at the best. And then Remus comes around and he can’t stop looking at him. His fingers are itching for his camera. When he caves and snaps one, regulus just stares at him in disbelief because what is there to capture? Remus just stares back because he doesn’t know what to do and then they just kind of move on and don’t mention it. Remus feels bad for not asking first, until he does it again. He didn’t mean to, it was instinct again. Regulus was further away now, looking picturesque while he read on the windowsill and he couldn’t help himself! He finds he has another moment like that again and again. And again. And again. And again-
And Artist Regulus who’s always loved charcoal drawing. He loves the messiness of the medium, the smearing for shadows with his fingers feels like pumping warmth into the coal and how his sketches can blend with and become a part of the final piece and making every step part of the overall feeling. He doesn’t really draw people because they don’t interest him, until he meets Remus. He’s so… just… half his desk has scattered sketches of Remus. His nose, his eyes, his scars, his curls, his hands, his collar bones, they’re all heightened in detail but only as one feature per sketch of the boy because regulus simply can’t capture them all together and make it look like Remus. He’s just too… too… hm, there’s another sketch.
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