#the puppet is a puppet is a puppet so on and so forth

[bhaals-damned-son]

The fandom does really intrigue me whenever talk about Astarion in relationship or Durge in relationship comes up. Because just browsing through the tags so many are insistent that a Astarion/Durge relationship could NEVER be healthy. And would be traumatic/awful for both. Which has me wondering whether the people insisting that either are projecting from their own traumas or just ignorant as to how trauma and CPTSD works.

Because firstly, as someone with it, who has friends with it, any relationship with someone who has CPTSD will have rough moments. Astarion in relationship with anyone will have moments of snapping, getting triggered, being uncertain of how to regulate and cope because he’s spent centuries just bottling it up. Then lashing out whenever touching the topic. So I do find it odd that there’s the insistence only Durge and Astarion would have moments like that. (Also the odd insistence from fandom that Astarion and any relationship is bad. No. He’s just got to be communicated with, learn coping and boundaries, that doesn’t happen by avoiding relationships, trust me.) There’s going to be an unbalance at first in ANY relationship with Astarion. The complexities of trauma wouldn’t allow anything else. So long as the partner doesn’t defer to pity or “I must protect you” and they can communicate as Astarion is already working towards at the end (albeit this is likely before he starts to really feel the ramifications of his bottled up trauma kicking in of course), they can work together to create a healthy working relationship. It’ll have bumps, fights on occasion, triggers. It happens even with friends I consider family. But it doesn’t make the relationship bad or unhealthy. Especially if you find those who can understand and help reinforce your boundaries (without relying on them solely to help you of course. A lot of individual work is needed and super important.)

Which I do especially love with Durge due to their foils and similar traumas. Obviously triggers will clash, it happens even with friends who have traumas, but that doesn’t mean a relationship is bad, toxic, unhealthy.

Idk I just worry this fandom is way too prone to obsessively focusing on shielding Astarion and in the same breath unintentionally dehumanizing abuse victims and those with CPTSD.

Take a breath and a step back, some people will ship things that you don’t see in the same way. People will view characters differently than you. Judging folks for a ship because of assuming the dynamic, assuming a character would be incapable of anything healthy (due to trauma), is a very very odd leap to make with nothing holding it to ground. Cease the odd judging. I know folks either ignore Astarion’s trauma or it’s all they can see, neither of which I agree with, but I know no one will view something in the same light. Fandom just really needs to ease up trying to condemn folks for ships

[seriema]

puppet ripper is almost funny in how fucked up it is if you connect all of its lore + game points. trade your best friend's soul (who you killed) with the guy who ends up betraying the place you've come to call home for the weapon that almost definitely killed one of your most trusted allies' parents.

[sleepy-spaceman]

i think its really funny that whenever i know the rest of my family is going out to do stuff for a few hours i go “oh boy peace and quite for a bit this is going to be so neat” and then the minute they leave i start talking to myself.

[justices-blade]

“ Good day, Edward. Are you enjoying the Winter Festival? ”  Pelleas greets the brunet.  “ As you can probably guess, I'm here to see you about that. If I'm entirely off-base with my choice of present, my apologies, but given your interest in it when we went to the illusory realm, I couldn't help but wonder. ”

With that, he offers a wrapped present box to Edward. Inside is a basic Light tome stacked below a journal. The journal already has a half of its pages filled out.

“ When I first got here, Micaiah and I had tried to study each other's magic types. I find the time she gave to me incredibly invaluable. I don't think I would've learned any light magic if it hadn't been for her help and her notes. So... I wish to bequeath them to you now, Edward. That journal should have transcriptions of our studies. It's mostly grammatical things about the Ancient Language and how to channel it when it comes to Faith in particular. 

“ I'd like to support you however I can, going forward, whether it be for this or anything else. I swear to you my intent not just as a man of Daein but also as... well, perhaps this doesn't sound as impactful as I thought it might, but... myself. ”  Slightly embarrassed by his own clumsy declaration, he presses forth anyway.  “ I-In any case, if you're not attempting to study it at all, hopefully the journal should still be able to serve its original use as, well, a journal, hahaha... ”

Edward, as always, perks up as Pelleas approaches; and for yet another year does Pelleas manage to find him first rather than the other way around. "Happy Winter Festival, Pelleas!" rings out in return, clear as a bell. "I've been having a ball! So, what'cha got for me?"

It's obvious he doesn't mind, though. This is always better than letters and parcels left behind, sentiment through the words of another— He's always loved contact, connection, and this is no different, pleased to be treasured enough to be sought, no matter the reason. He takes the present with bright gratitude, again not hesitating to crack it open and take a peek...

"Oh!" Edward can't help the excited noise as he flips open to a filled page, poring over familiar handwriting, words crystallising after a moment of squinting focus— He'd already be able to get a lot out of this since it supplements grammar where he waffles by in Faith rather than Light with nothing but instinct, because things always made the most sense when it was one of his dearest people saying it...

But these things aside, it's more than just that: It's notes, it's observations of two trained, different minds, it's warm conversation between two hearts he holds dear, their back-and-forth weaving a net of understanding of more than just subject material. This, too, is something he loves. After a moment, Edward closes the box and hugs it to his chest, beaming.

"Well, if I wasn't before, I definitely am now!" His fingers drum against the wrapping paper, warming briefly with Faith, humming with delight.

"My scores in all the technical stuff are kinda rotten, so this is a huge help... I'll make sure to come looking if I ever need help with this," his fingers tap against the parcel again, more insistently, "or anything else, really."

"And same goes for if you ever need me too—" He tucks the present under his arm, pounding a fist to his chest,

"For anything, as Edward!" mirroring Pelleas' declaration with as much weight as the mage had given it to him.

"Speaking of that." Pointer finger raised, 'wait up', as he stows the gift in his satchel and rummages for one of his own— Out comes something decidedly less boxy, some soft thing kept in a festive paper bag. When Pelleas opens it, he'll find a scarf and a matching pair of short, fingerless gloves, white material stitched with blue in a style he might recognise from elsewhere— Stain-resistant, comfortable and warm, functional and sentimental all in one.

"Here!" he says, simple and vibrant as ever. "Again: Happy Winter Festival, Pelleas!!"

[flufflecat]

starting a new project

[mothercain]

Circus

What if I broke my spine forever? My sister would come into the room to draw her portraits in charcoal, of two bulging eyes in a sea of haze grey. Each portrait is no bigger than an index card, arranged on a piece of rigid stock paper, tessellated and horribly consistent. All those dead eyes staring out at her as she renders them incapable of telling her anything. “I hate you” she would say to me, every time she would finish another. “You’ve ruined it. You’ve completely ruined it.” She would storm out the room, echoing for complete lack of furniture, and I would be left alone with them to watch over me.

I would ask you to pick me up and you would do so carefully, my limp body soft and complete. Can you carry me, lay me on the mattress in the back of the house? Or on the ground, it doesn’t make a difference to me. Sometimes I think you don’t believe I can’t feel anything and most of the time I don’t believe you can imagine what that’s like.

“Crush me” I tell you. I can only blink my eyes and move my mouth. I could probably wiggle my ears if I tried but I never feel up to it. You would gently press down on my breasts and my rib cage.

“Can you feel that?”

I slowly move my head left to right and back again.

I think about outside and what it feels like to be there. The treetops and the june-bugs and the hatred I feel for summertime. Everyone has gone on without me.

“Hit me.”

You look at me like you don’t want to but I know where your wonder hides, in the small places like a boy afraid of his own shadow.

You punch me in my side, my arm, my stomach.

“Can you feel that?”

I smile so big like I’m at the circus.

“Cut me.”

“What?”

“Cut me.”

You look down at me on the mattress. Here I am, unmoving and so horny.

“Please, baby, if I never ask anything of you ever again, just cut me.”

Wonder-boy takes his buck knife and carves a small canyon on my upper thigh. I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t watched him do it.

“Again.”

He looks me in my eyes as he separates another layer of subcutaneous. It is pink and red and yellow and blue and disgusting. I am butter and cottage cheese inside.

He stands there over me, belt unbuckled, denim undone, sweating, afraid, wonder creeping out for a closer look. His eyes are wild, so far from the fog of mine. Yet, we both want the very same thing. He removes his penis from his clothes and his clothes from his body and he slides it, hard as stone, back and forth through the gushing flesh of my upper thigh. I can’t feel a thing but I could cum just from watching. I have my own wonder too. The air in the room is hung from the ceiling unmoving like a puppet sleeping on his gallows. I am so lucky that he loves me, I am I am I am. He fucks my butchered leg like a stray dog and I cum over and over and over again watching him.

We embrace like kin in the hospital waiting room. “I am so lucky that he loves me” I think as he holds me. Despite the bright red picture I’ve painted in the white lobby tonight, they ask of me just five minutes. I don’t mind. If I don’t look, it makes no difference to me.

[moremaybank]

CHOCOLATE , jj maybank

── KINKTOBER: PRAISE KINK + SQUIRTING + MIRROR SEX

"all i know is, it rains when it feels right." ─ kiana ledé, chocolate. (remix)

jj maybank x insecure!gf!reader

(18+) praise kink, squirting, fingering, use of a mirror (technically it's partial mirror sex), dirty talk

jj worships you when you’re feeling down (and makes it rain)

KINKTOBER , OBX MASTERLIST

jj's chest was hot against your back, the two of you pressed up skin to skin. you melted into him like chocolate, craving him and the way he took the time to worship you.

lucky for you, jj was always in the mood to do so.

when you had confided in jj and told him you were feeling insecure lately, presumbly because of your upcoming period, he wasted no time crafting a plan with the goal to make you feel better.

there was no way in hell he was gonna let his girl walk around thinking she was anything less than perfect, whether her insecurities were caused by hormones or not.

he'd pulled your body-length mirror closer to the edge of your bed, placed you between his legs, spread you wide open and made you watch as he cherished you with his words and with his magic touch.

"who told you you weren't perfect? huh, baby? 'cause the way you're lookin' right now, 'm pretty sure you're an angel 'n this is heaven.”

his fingers slide into your warm, oozing cunt rhythmically, each punt curling upward to play with that spongy part of you that made your thighs tremble for him. every single press to it forced a pitiful moan to tumble past your parted lips.

"hate seein' you like this, baby..." the ringed knuckles of jj's free hand skimmed up and down anywhere they could reach, drawing imaginary lines on your inner thighs and your stomach. the cool metal ran over your pebbling nipples and pulled goosebumps forth from your flesh. "jus' need me to remind you how perfect you are? hm?"

his chin hooked over your shoulder, and he dotted kiss after kiss on your blood-rushed cheek. turning his head, he found your gaze in the mirror and held it there. the pad of his thumb applied pressure to your clit, rubbing it in time with the work of his fingers. he motioned downward with his chin, urging you to look at your filled pussy in the reflection. "see how that pretty pussy takes my fingers? look at'er go, mama."

you mewl pathetically when he starts to fingerfuck you harder, the heel of his palm now colliding with your clit and making your knees buckle. "feels too good, j," you voiced out the best as you could. you could barely suck in a breath as the freight train that was your high crept up on you. "don't deserve it. don't deserve you."

jj tutted you, shaking his head. "yeah you fuckin' do. deserve the world, mama. fuck, you're so good."

your heat started to clamp down on his fingers, quivering and convulsing helplessly.

"you wanna cum?" jj asked, eyes meeting yours in the mirror once more. your smaller hand circles around his wrist, holding on while he used it to please you. "that sound good, sweetheart?"

"y-yeah. please, j. need it."

"then you gotta say what i tell you to, alright?"

you nodded for him. you had no idea what you were agreeing to, but you didn't care. jj was completely taking over all of you, and you just wanted to be good for him. do anything he asked of you because you seeked his approval so direly.

"tell me how pretty you look with your pussy stuffed."

your stomach did cartwheels and your core fluttered at his vulgarity. gulping, you did as he said. "i-i look pretty with my pussy stuffed."

"yeah...yeah you do, baby. tell me you take it so well when daddy fucks you. tell me how perfect your pussy is for me."

"m-my pussy's perfect. take it so well for you, daddy."

"good. now look yourself in the mirror 'n say you're beautiful," was his next command. his gaze was scorching, his praise electrifying and heart-filling. he'd handcrafted you into his own puppet, or he'd had you hypnotized. either way, the words leaked out of you like a faucet.

"i'm beautiful."

"again...say it again, baby."

"i'm— shit— i'm beautiful!"

his rosy lips found solace in the crook of your neck. he pressed open mouthed kisses before letting his teeth lightly nip and scrape at your pulse point. "so beautiful, mama. deserve to cum real good, yeah? go 'head 'n give it to me."

jj's left hand sought out your breast, pinching your sensitive nipple just how you liked. his fingers were relentless, fucking your sopping cunt into oblivion. you were so far gone that you couldn't speak. the pit in your core was burning ferociously, threatening to take you over completely.

"yeaaah. there ya go." you started to cum, your juices shooting out of you in spurts. his fingers withdrew from you, cum-slicked fingerpads rubbing at your clit almost viciously as he tried to get more out of you. he grinned wickedly when his plan worked, and your pussy continued to squirt for him. the glass was covered and your shared image was distorted, but all you could zone in on was your godsent boyfriend and his ever-so-skilled words. and hands.

"i love you so much, mama. don't ever think you aren't enough."

[wonderjanga]

Bully Batson

Billy can be an asshole. This has been said before by multiple kids, including Freddy and Mary. Billy thinks it’s genetic though. He thinks this because he remembers Ebenezer talking about how rowdy and rude “Clarence and his stupid wife” were when they were younger. (Ref to this Puppet post) Billy hid his cane because of that comment. After all, you don’t just call his mom stupid and think there won’t be any consequences. Best part is that Ebenezer just thought he misplaced it. Anyways, so yeah. Billy can be an asshole. He just chooses not to be. Most of the time.

Billy: *watching a kid swing* “Can I have a turn?”

Kid: “No!”

Billy: *sighs and walks away to play on the merry go round*

After a bit of letting himself spun dangerously fast and thrown off the merry go round a couple times. He went back to the kid to see if he could have a turn.

Kid: *still swinging*

Billy: “Can I have a turn now?”

Kid: “No! It’s not your turn yet!”

Billy: “At least have a turn.” *walks off to the monkey bars*

After hanging upside down on the monkey bars and letting the blood rush to his head causing him to nearly fall and snap his neck, he went back to the kid.

Billy: *annoyed that he’s not on the swings yet and nearly dying at the monkey bars* “Is it my turn now?”

Kid: “No! I already said it’s not your turn! Wait.”

Billy: *stares for a solid few moments just watching the kid swing back and forth before timing himself and pushing the kid on the swing*

Now, this didn’t achieve what Billy had hoped, which was simply pushing the kid off the swing. No, rather, it instead caused the kid to be pushed to the side mid swing causing him to swing weirdly and make the swing turn all around and jerk causing the kid to be thrown off. Billy, not expecting the swing to react that dramatically. That didn’t stop him from hopping on the swing though. It also didn’t stop the kid from whining about a couple scrapes they got.

Billy: *now swinging happily with barely any remorse*

Parent: *stomps over* “Little boy! Little boy!”

Billy: *slows his swinging* “Yes?”

Parent: “Did you push my son off the swing?”

Billy: *shameless* “Yeah.”

Parent: *sees the shamelessness* “Where are your parents?”

Billy: “They’re dead.”

*silence*

Billy: *goes back to his whimsical, happy swinging*

Now, that’s just as Billy. He “bullies”, as the media nowadays calls it, his villains as well. He doesn’t consider it bullying though.

5 Minutes and 39 seconds of Captain Marvel bullying his villains:

Marvel: *using magic to take individual salt grains and sprinkle them on Mr. Mind*

Mr. Mind: *being restrained by magic and the little grains feel like little pricks and itchiness* “ACK- STOP THAT!”

or

Marvel: *stole Sivana’s glasses* “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Sivana: “I DON’T CARE YOU DOLT!” *shooting at him with a laser gun and missing every shot*

or

Marvel: *has Captain Nazi in a headlock and is giving him a noogie*

Captain Nazi: *literally doing everything in his power to try and get out, including catching and biting*

or

Marvel: *keeps trying to scare the shit out of Adam by almost saying Shazam whenever he’s up close and personal* “Sha-”

Black Adam: *jerks away and flies like ten feet away*

Marvel: *literally points and laughs*

[konigsblog]

chubby könig and petite reader, please :3

Size difference with chubby-König... 💦

cw - stomach bulge, reader is described as petite, size difference, afab!reader. MDNI 18+

König can be gentle, tender, and careful with such a fragile and small thing like yourself. His thrusts can be agonisingly slow and deep, hitting places you've never felt before, gradually turning you into a whore, addicted to the sensation of your tiny cunt being filled. But, König can also be mercilessly cruel and violent, throwing your smaller form over his shoulder, to treat you like a puppet for his own entertainment.

Is it cruel? Absolutely, but does he pleasure himself and get off to the sight of you bent over and manhandled into a plethora of different positions? Also yes.

Chubby-König enjoys the sight of you atop of him, riding his lengthy and girthy cock or grinding back and forth against his chubby, hairy stomach. The fuzziness of his happytrail rubs against your swollen, slick folds when you rock your hips back and forth sloppily, biting down on the König's two thick and calloused fingers pushed down your throat in an attempt to muffle your needy cries for attention and your precious, desired orgasm. He obsesses over the clear and obvious size difference, the way your cunt looks tiny in comparison. He struggles to comprehend how you can take half of him, driving himself utterly insane at the fantasies ruining his mind.

Chubby-König won't hesitate to use his bodyweight against you, to hold you down and leave you defenceless.

He's self aware of his size and knows how easy it would be to crush you, that's why he's so anxious to fall asleep beside his beloved; he doesn't want to hurt you. But, König may press his bodyweight down onto you while you're bent over, keeping your hips in place as he fills your drooling, leaking pussy with strings of his potent and creamy arousal. The stickiness runs down your thighs and you're forced to accept every inch and glob, the huge and thick size of König's dick forming a stomach bulge. He presses his large hand over your stomach and rolls his eyes backwards, bucking his broad and fat hips slightly at the perverse thoughts running through his strange and sick mind.

“Heilige Scheiße—! Das wird mich verrückt machen, kleine Maus...” (Holy shit—! This is going to drive me crazy, little mouse...)

[teddybeartoji]

sukuna teaching you how to cook…       

pressed flush against you, his hand rests on top of yours as you grip the knife. it’s almost as if he’s the puppeteer and you his toy with the way he guides you – he moves, you move, you’re one and the same. his other hand is on you as well, fingers almost intertwined as he helps you hold the piece of meat steady on the cutting board. you can’t help but think how intimate it all feels, how close he is. 

his voice is deeper than usual and it’s making it very hard for you to concentrate, especially when his lips keep brushing over the shell of your ear. you’re trying, you really are, to pay attention to what he’s saying because it’s not often you get to see this side of him – cooking is something he adores, and he’s taking this way more seriously than you could’ve ever imagined. but it’s not like you’re complaining… oh, no – you’re loving every second of this. 

you’re sure he can feel that your breathing has picked up, and you’re sure he knows that you’re stumbling further and further away from being his perfect little pupil and falling head first into an entirely different role instead. your hold on the knife falters while his on your hand tightens. the meat before you bleeds and the clear juices coat the wooden board alongside with your fingers. 

and his. 

“focus, doll… “ 

his rasp catches you off-guard, his low voice pulling you from your thoughts. he hears you swallow the lump in your throat and you feel him smile against your ear. 

“i’m very focused, ryo…” 

“on the wrong things– yes.” you don’t have to see him to know that he’s wearing that annoyingly handsome smirk of his, ever so proud to have this kind of effect on his beloved.

you suck your teeth before poking your tongue against your inner cheek; your body grows hot at all the attention he’s giving you. sukuna presses forward an inch and your hips meet the edge of the kitchen counter – now completely sandwiched between him and the piece of furniture, your head clouds with thoughts so far from cooking that your knees nearly buckle from below you. 

“c’mon now.” he raises your hand with the knife still in your palm and holds it above the piece of red meat. the blade glints under the dimmed down light, the silver winking at you before sinking down into the raw cutlet. back and forth, the movement of your hands is slow but steady – the knives in your house are never dull, so every pull and every push you make feel as if you’re gliding through butter. 

but it’s not just the sharpened blade— 

it’s the sheer power he holds. 

sukuna’s hands are skilled, his fingers rough but surprisingly gentle at the very same time. he knows exactly how much force to use, how to cut through a piece of flesh with so much ease that the act makes you wonder about his past lives. a butcher, a killer? or perhaps a god instead? 

to slash and to score. to gut and then devour. 

caged in his arms, you feel like his next bite. his sharp teeth brush against your ear once more and you can’t help but tense up as a wave of excitement shoots through your body and a nervous chuckle tumbles from your lips. 

he hums. 

his fingers unwrap themselves from around your hand before reaching for the cut you just made. he picks it up and then shows it to you with pride. 

“not too thick, not too thin.” your mouth waters, you barely register his words. “remember that.” 

“mhmm.”

there isn’t an inch between your bodies and you can hardly breathe. 

“what did i say?”

with him, you’ve learned about this other kind of excitement; he asks you a question and there’s this pressure, a burning sensation in the pit of your stomach – it teeters between a giddy, butterflies of love type of thing and pure feverish thrill. 

walking in a circle, eyes on each other – a dance between the prey and the predator. the most he’d do is laugh, tease you a little. maybe even sink his teeth into your neck and inhale the whine you’d let out. that’s what he wants. a little sound. you’re in the palm of his hand and you both know it. 

but if you’re good…

“not too thick and not too thin.”

it’s a kiss from a beast that you’ll get in return. a word of praise from a god, a tender look from a killer. a safe haven behind a butcher’s ribcage.  

stained fingers find your cheek and you’re putty in his hands; it takes no effort at all to turn you to finally face him and it takes no time at all for him to press his lips against yours. but he doesn’t nip and he doesn’t bite, not this time. 

a soft spot in a lover’s heart.

[star2fishmeg]

Your inexperienced blurbs are all amazingly can you do Quinn next?

He's slow but he's full of passion, taking his time to drag his cock through your walls that squeeze him tight, cherishing the virgin moans slipping out from you shamelessly, uncaring of his neighbours but he's hitting places your fingers can never reach and it's sending avid desire to your throbbing cunt. Quinn groans into your neck, lips smoothing the column with wet kisses, sucking over the flesh knowing how insane it drives you.

His breath fans up to your ear, lips grazing over your cheek and he rasps, hips thrusting languidly, "You okay, pretty girl? Tell me if you wanna stop and I will."

Tilting your head back into his pillows, you turn your head slightly and capture his lips in yours, tongue finding his with a hunger that takes him by surprise. Your nails claw into his back, dragging and gripping his muscles, pulling him closer, moaning when his pace notably speeds up as if he's giving in to his own lust.

"Why the hell would I do that?" you kiss him again, "You feel so fucking good, Q. Can you go faster?"

He doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to as his hips speak for him, rutting into you faster, back and forth, back and forth, sweat trickling down his temple and this electrifying feeling washing through you every time his cock hits your cervix, and a grunt leaves his throat. You can't pretend like you're not in heaven anymore, letting wanton moans, elongated and chanting his name as your pussy stretches to properly fit him and only him, clenching. You hook both legs around his hips, locking your ankles and he slides in deeper, hitting angles voraciously.

"Use your words, sweetheart," he grumbles, voice deep and enticing in your ear, vibrating in his chest as his hair clings to his face, cock plunging into your cunt still, "need you to tell me if this is okay. Don't wanna hurt you."

"Oh, Quinn! M'good, so fucking good. Fucking this pretty pussy so well." Your lips pulled into a smile, eyes rolling back as you gripped him tighter, nails digging crescents into his flexing muscles.

He's at a loss for words, almost ruining his rhythm yet the way you whine is so enticing, and that paired with the wet sounds of his dick sliding in and out of you, he pulls himself together, lips attaching to your neck.

"I thought you'd never done," he thrusts harder, your breasts bouncing and the volume of your wails becoming high-pitched, "this before."

You giggle with delirium, that high in your head where everything feels great and your body is light like all the weight had been lifted just by Quinn's cock alone, "A virgin, Q-oh, a horny one. S'not like I don't know what sex is- shit, there, right there."

He chuckles, it's hard not to. Your pleasure controls him like a puppet, driving his cock into the exact spongey spot you'd been begging for, one hand rolling your nipple just to be a tease before sliding to your clit, fingers circling the under of shooting nerves and drawing somewhere between a moan and giggle from you. His stomach tightens, like a coil and watching you get lost in your euphoric arousal has his pace becoming sloppier, desperate but still not as rough as he thinks you'd like him to be yet. It is your first time still, and he wants you to enjoy it.

[ckret2]

The second dimension has burned up, almost(?) everyone is dead, the ones that aren't dead wish they were, and this funny little yellow triangle the Axolotl met one time is some kind of god ghost party host tyrant.

Wanna make it even worse?? I know you do. Let's make it so much worse.

Here, have a fic. Last week's Part 1 is about Bill doing some kind of cosmic horror shit to the Axolotl; part 2 here is about the Axolotl trying to process the most horrifying thing he's ever seen while a bunch of the most annoying gods you've ever seen argue about building inspections and vandalism.

####

When the Axolotl tumbled out of the bloated pocket of reality where Dimension Zero's singularity was supposed to be, for a moment he thought he'd gotten turned around and flown straight back in, because here again was the yellow triangle's nightmarish party: the geometric rainbow of corpses and undead puppeted into dancing for their "magister," the flashing strobe lights, the hissing whispery white noise like the echoes of a Big Bang had gained sentience and started passing secrets to each other, the cacophonous music that seemed to be every song playing at once.

He had to shake his head to clear it and make sense of what he was seeing. No corpses, no dancing: all he was seeing was all the gods who'd gathered together outside the incinerated two dimensional wall to help deal with the criss, at least triple what there had been before he'd entered what-wasn't-Dimension-Zero. The flashing lights were the cameras and broadcasting equipment of reporters, cordoned off from the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force's main center of operations but still crowding as close as possible to see what the firefighters and ATTF were doing. The whispers were the buzz of activity among the emergency response workers.

And the music was only playing in his own head.

A few gods glanced at him as he emerged from the immense roiling miasma that had replaced Dimension Zero, but they had their own business to deal with and he wasn't part of it, so he was quickly ignored. He wouldn't know what to say if anyone had spoken to him. It was hard to think of anything but the dancing.

He should tell someone what he'd seen. Numbly, he looked around for the storm cloud with the ATTF he'd spoken to earlier, but couldn't pick it out from the crowd.

There was one "face" in the crowd he distantly recognized: a harried-looking vending machine filled with planets and moons—VENDOR, the Axolotl was pretty sure. Some politician. THEY were irritably shifting THEIR worlds back and forth on THEIR spiral racks as THEY spoke to one of the ATTF's many apocalypse cops; THEY'd already vended five planets that the apoc cop had cradled in their tentacles. As the Axolotl swam past the duo in search of the cloud, he heard VENDOR snapping, "—I'll have you know elections are coming up again. The last thing I need is Municipalitron suggesting this lackluster response to a gaping hole into Dimension Zero is MY fault! By the time those rubbernecking reporters make it around your flimsy barrier, I want to be able to report you've cleaned up this mess—" Was the incinerated Dimension 2 Delta even in THEIR district?

He saw THEM on the news from time to time at cosmic crises like this, providing temporary planets for refugees until they could be moved to other worlds (or, in dire enough circumstances—other dimensions); that must be what THEY were here for now. It tended to get THEM a lot of good press. The Axolotl didn't know how much of it was deserved.

To the Axolotl's further distaste, there were also cops here now—not the apoc cops, they were fine, but cop-cops: he saw one crablike being with red and blue mushrooms growing out from where his eyes used to be, and two interlocked fiery rings with a hundred distrustful eyes. They were talking to the hapless furred serpent the Axolotl had seen before he'd gone in to investigate Dimension Zero, the one who'd called in the emergency. She didn't look at all comfortable with whatever they were asking. Why the hell did a spontaneously combusting universe call for the police? Who did they think they were going to arrest? Who did they think they could blame for the fire? The fire itself?

Unless they thought it was arson?

There was the storm cloud: it was talking to another apoc cop, a floating flock of sheep with an ATTF badge pinned in their rain-soaked wool. The Axolotl headed their direction—but paused at the sight of the triangle's sun.

Before Dimension 2 Delta had burned, the little triangle's two-dimensional home planet had been illuminated by a sun shining down on it from the third dimension—a sun no one but the triangle could see. With 2Δ gone, the third dimension was slowly falling into Dimension Zero's nauseating threshold; and in the time the Axolotl had been talking to the triangle, his sun had fallen halfway toward the threshold.

He carefully picked it up and nudged it a safe distance back, then shook the sting of heat out of his paws. 

Someone said, "Hold on, you're the one who defaced the Department of Multiversal Vehicles' office!"

The Axolotl turned to look. VENDOR had apparently ganged up with the cops against the serpent. He groaned under his breath.

Looking between the trio with panic in her eyes and clutching her spray paint can anxiously to her underbelly, the serpent was saying, "Okay, okay, maybe I was out here to do a little graffiti—"

The Axolotl winced and muttered, "Oh, don't voluntarily confess anything." The cloud could wait. He hurried in their direction.

"—but I hadn't actually started anything when the dimension caught on fire! I mean—all right maybe I'd done a couple of tags, but only in vacuum, nowhere near any stars! And the fire started way off from where I was—"

"That sounds likely," VENDOR said.

"You've already got a rap sheet for vandalism," the crablike cop said. "Decided to try out arson—?"

The tentacled apoc cop who'd been speaking to VENDOR earlier cut into the conversation. "Lay off, we've already checked her out. The combustible material in a can of spray paint would only take out a solar system at most. Do you have any idea, any idea, just how much power it takes to burn a whole dimension?"

The dual fiery rings wheeled aggressively in front of the apoc cop. "You let us do our job, calamari. Just focus on doing your own."

"Don't mind if I do," the Axolotl said. He put himself between the accused criminal and the gods of punishment, gills flared and curled forward. "I believe this serpent was a witness to the fire. Is she under arrest?" (He could feel some of the mental numbness wearing off, the horror loosen its grip on his heart as he focused on doing his job.)

VENDOR took one look at him and scoffed. "Oh, you. I know who you are," THEY said. "I suppose this is one of your pro bono clients." All one hundred and two of the cops' eyes immediately snapped to the Axolotl.

Why did everyone think that today? "No," the Axolotl said exasperatedly, "she's not. But I do know her rights. Including her right not to answer any of your questions." (The serpent's jaw snapped shut.) "Do you?"

The cops both bristled. VENDOR drew THEMSELF up to THEIR full height (which was the same height THEY'd already been, a metal brick being rather inflexible like that) and prepared to retort—but THEIR internal camera caught on something just to the Axolotl's side. "Oh, no. Not her."

The Axolotl turned. Hovering in the void behind them, so small and translucent she'd be unnoticeable if not for the faint pinkish glow she gave off, was an astrally-projected mortal soul: a four-armed salamander-like woman with a robe and a string of beads wrapped around one wrist. She opened her eyes, blinking up at the Axolotl.

"Oracle," the Axolotl said, half greeting, half a surprised query. The Oracle bowed her head to him.

To the mortals she served, the Oracle was a priestess who received messages from a god: prophecies to help her people understand the divine and navigate the future. To the beings powerful enough to get called gods, the Oracle was essentially one in a long line of intern news bloggers that the Axolotl occasionally had coffee with to discuss local politics and court cases. His Oracles were almost always low-level mortal criminals who had gotten themselves involved in enough trouble to attract gods' attention, but whom he'd taken under his fin to help get out of that life before they graduated to crimes against reality. The Axolotl thought it was important to offer mortals help before they crossed a line they could never uncross, and important to keep an open conduit of information between higher and lower planes. He thought the people who had the power to shape reality owed transparency to the people living in the realities they shaped.

Not everyone agreed. 

"You smuggled your reporter past the barricade," VENDOR said accusatorially. (The cops visibly flinched at the word "reporter," the crablike one nervously clacking his claws and the ringed one's many eyes widening.)

"No, I had no idea she was coming." Which was unusual. Usually, the Axolotl visited the Oracle in her sleep to catch her up on his day's work and how it might affect mortal affairs; it wasn't often the Oracle sought him out first.

"Well, I'm not making a statement." VENDOR abruptly turned THEIR back to the Axolotl and his Oracle. "If anyone asks, no comment. I'm not commenting on the current incident." The cops also took the opportunity to quietly slink off. The Axolotl watched them go, making sure they didn't find someone new to bully as they left.

The Oracle shot VENDOR and the cops a puzzled look. The Axolotl said, "Don't worry about THEM. Why are you here?"

"Our seers have had premonitions. Could you enlighten us on their meaning?" the Oracle asked.

"Of course. What did they see?"

"They've received visions of an explosion in the... sky..." She trailed off, staring in wonder at the gap into Dimension Zero behind the incinerated wall. "Is... that the explosion?"

Before the Axolotl could answer, the storm cloud he'd been looking for swept past to loom over her. She flinched as her view of her god was suddenly blocked by a torrential thunderstorm, and flinched again as a sunbeam pierced the clouds to shine directly upon her and a serious voice boomed down from the tempestuous heavens: "Your people witnessed it?"

"There you are," the Axolotl said. "I was looking for you��"

The cloud pointed at him with a finger of lightning. "I'll get your statement second. Mortal's first. They don't last as long." (The Axolotl didn't think the Oracle was going to die of old age in the time it would take him to explain what he'd seen in Dimension Zero, but he didn't argue.) It said to the tentacled god, "Get those planets out to the flat worlders. The flock's already out there."

"On it." They tightened their tentacles around the worlds VENDOR had already passed over, and quickly scuttled off toward the line of blue light on the interdimensional horizon.

The storm asked the Oracle, "Can you describe what happened?"

"Uh..." She looked around nervously, trying to find the source of the voice, not realizing it came from the storm itself. "That's... what I came here to find out."

The Axolotl slipped his tail over her as an umbrella. (He needed the water, anyway; he'd been too close to too many fires today.) "Just tell it what your seers saw, like you were telling me. You may be able to help us."

"Help how?"

"None of us directly witnessed the 'explosion' your seers did."

Her eyes widened in alarm. "How do the gods not witness something?"

The Axolotl hesitated. "Even gods' eyes aren't all-seeing." He decided he didn't want the first thing he told his Oracle about the situation to be that all the gods that could have directly witnessed the "explosion" had been killed by it.

As the Oracle spoke, the storm cloud took notes in a damp notepad it kept steady with a current of air, burning the information onto the pages with a thread of lightning that meandered across the page like a Tesla coil. VENDOR, who'd backed out of "interviewing" range but not out of hearing range, partially turned to listen to her statement. (And while the other gods were distracted, the furred serpent quietly slunk off, trying to hide her spray paint as she did; the Axolotl didn't call attention to her. If the storm needed anything else from her, no doubt it had already gotten her contact info. Better that she go before the cops circled back to harass her some more.)

The Oracle said that her people's seers had seen a whole patch of the sky burning bright blue and collapsing together, the edges going black and the center growing impossibly bright, until everything sank into the center—and then went dark. Only once it was dark could they see what the light had been concealing: behind the collapsed patch of sky, there was a sea of seething colors. (The assembled group tried not to stare too obviously at the multicolored miasma that used to be Dimension Zero.) One seer had gone blind staring straight into the light, trying to discover anything about its nature.

The cloud asked, "And did she see anything important?"

The Oracle said hesitantly, as though not sure whether this detail mattered: "She said the light was... triangular."

A chill settled over the Axolotl. 

The cloud stopped, perplexed. "Huh." And then it dutifully burned that information down as well.

(Maybe it was nothing; triangles were very common symbols, lots of phenomena naturally formed triangles. Or maybe what she'd seen was whatever the triangle had done to try to save his people. Or maybe, maybe....)

While the cloud was focused on taking down its notes, the Oracle dragged her eyes from the tumbling colors of Dimension Zero and turned to the Axolotl. "We're worried about what these visions mean." She switched from interviewee to interviewer, all journalistic professionalism. "What did they see? What was this explosion?"

The Axolotl focused on the question to push the triangle from his mind. His eyes began to glow, as he recited:

"The multiverse is layered planes,

Stacked to bear existence's strains.

1D pillars, 2D walls,

3D rooms in 4D halls;

On a 0D foundation:

That's reality's construction. 

One wall falls into the basement,

It can shake the whole apartment.

But other walls can still load-bear

Until the gods can make repairs."

"Okay... Thank you. And—our plane is 3D?"

"That's right."

The Oracle took notes of her own: one of her four hands spun in loose loops, like an absent-minded conductor. In her physical body, she'd be holding a marker in a trance, copying down the prophecy the Axolotl had given her. No doubt it would be in the mortal papers on her world by tomorrow. The Axolotl thought it was better that the mortals know there was something wrong but that the people who had the power to do something about it were on the job, rather than just worry without answers. (Again, he was sometimes in the minority opinion. VENDOR was managing to give him the stink eye without a face.) "Is the multiverse actually structured like an apartment complex?"

"No," the Axolotl said. "It's a helpful visual metaphor." And it had rhymed with basement.

"But... this is something you can fix?"

"It is. There are gods of space and doomsday already here working to stabilize the foundation and repair the fallen wall." (VENDOR's lights flickered a bit brighter at the positive acknowledgment to the press.)

"Gods of doomsday?" She gave him an alarmed look.

"It's a misleading title. The ones here work to prevent accidental apocalypses."

"You're underselling the severity of the issue," the storm cloud muttered, not looking up from its notes. "This isn't your run-of-the-mill cosmic repair job. A second dimension's fully collapsed into the zeroth dimension. That's a plane packed into a point. That shouldn't be possible. It's destabilized everything built on top of the zeroth dimension—which means the entire multiverse." (VENDOR tried to shush it. It didn't acknowledge THEM.) "Plus, this fire is kicking our collective butts. One- and two-dimensional gods are getting incinerated, not even afterlives and underworlds are escaping the fire, reality itself is at risk of collapsing, we still don't know what's doing it—"

VENDOR let out a beep that was as loud as a car alarm. "Is there any reason the mortals need to know that!"

"Ehh... not that I can think of." The cloud glanced up from its notes. "They're powerless to do anything about it. It'd just make them worry about something that's out of their h..." Its roving sunbeams caught on the Oracle, still diligently taking notes on this out-of-control fire. "Oh."

Quietly, the Oracle asked, "You're sure the multiverse will be fine? If this fire even kills gods..."

The Axolotl paused. "I was more sure a second ago."

"It'll stand," the storm cloud said grimly, "but if we can't stop the fires, not for long. We've called out every god we can to help, but..."

"It should stand," VENDOR said quickly. "I'm sure the other walls are fine—I've personally seen to it that we're rigorous about maintaining our dimensions' structural integrity."

The cloud's sunbeam aimed ruefully at the missing wall. "Good work," it muttered.

VENDOR rounded angrily on it, "Well all the preventative cosmic inspections in the multiverse are useless if the inspectors didn't do their job right! Which they clearly didn't!"

The cloud raised a wall of fog defensively.

VENDOR paced in an angry figure 8 as THEY fumed, "It's incompetence all around! I'll bet anything it was electricians who miswired the laws of electromagnetism and shorted them out, or—or something! A properly constructed load-bearing wall imploding, much less dumping into the center of reality, just doesn't happen! And nobody noticed the danger?"

"We can't rule out the possibility of terrorism yet," the cloud said. 

 VENDOR rounded on the cloud to demand, "What terrorist would risk destroying the multiverse?!"

Angry lightning danced around its tornado. "How should I freaking know! A stupid one?!"

"Hah! That's all you've got?! The dimensions might have been burned by a stupid terrorist?" THEY turned on the Oracle. "Do not print that!"

Her hand froze mid-loop.

Thunder rumbled in the storm cloud. "Look, apocalypse Origin & Cause is still investigating, and the cosmic engineering inspector isn't here yet. If you'd give us five nanoseconds to do our jobs—!"

"What do you mean, isn't here yet! What's taking them so long?"

"I just put in the call—"

"That's no excuse, they ought to have been here before you called! Do engineers have time tapes or not!" VENDOR let out several irritated beeps as THEIR internal motors ground in irritation. "Probably dragging their heels because they didn't do their job properly before the dimension fell! Oh, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind." THEY charged off, still muttering, "I'll have the heads of the last inspector and the lazy subcontractors who didn't build this dimension up to code! If this does anything to jeopardize my reelection— You there, police!" (The crab cop, who'd attempted to make himself useful by eyeing the reporters still outside the cordon menacingly, started at being directly addressed again.) "I need your assistance! I need someone to hold up a phone for me."

The Axolotl gave THEM a wide berth as THEY passed. Even as a god who almost exclusively dealt with the dead, this level of devastation left the Axolotl stunned with horror. But VENDOR's biggest concern wasn't the loss of life? Nor the threat to public safety posed by the exposed and mutated Dimension Zero? It was a stupid election?

He made a mental note to look into Municipalitron's policies before the next election.

Quietly, the Oracle asked, "Are you safe here? If there's a fire that can even kill gods..."

When the storm had told the Axolotl about 2Δ's fire, it had said not even gods and ghosts made it out— The Axolotl's frills perked up. "Right, I came back here to tell it— Er, yes, I think I'm safe—but I need to tell—" He turned to the storm cloud, "I haven't told you what I saw yet!"

"Oh, right—I meant to congratulate you on coming back alive." It flipped to a new page in its notepad. "Congrats."

"You said that everyone in 2Δ died," the Axolotl said.

"They did. I can guarantee it." It grew its tornado to pantomime an expanding ring: "The readings Origin & Cause have gotten so far indicate that an enormous gravitational wave from the spontaneous combustion event's epicenter tore the universe apart. Imagine gluing a bunch of corn chips to a tablecloth, pulling the tablecloth tight from both sides, and dragging the tablecloth straight down off one end of the table. It'd shatter all the chips as they passed over the table's edge. Destroyed everyone and everything in that universe, on every plane. Landscape, mindscape, dreamscape..."

"Well," the Axolotl said, with the edge of triumph he got whenever he figured out how to rip a prosecutor's witness in half, "I found survivors. So how's that possible?"

He expected surprise. Instead, the cloud bobbed up and down in recognition, as though the Axolotl were confirming something it already knew. 

On the other hand, from half a solar system away, VENDOR shouted indignantly, "I beg your pardon?!" THEY leaned away from the phone the cop was holding for THEM. "How many?" THEY began rotating through THEIR internal selection of planets.

"Two or three million," the Axolotl called back.

VENDOR huffed irritably and switched to looking through their collection of much smaller, rockier astronomical bodies. "Hardly worth a moon, much less a planet," THEY muttered. "From Dimension 2 Delta, I assume."

"No," the storm cloud said. "Everyone in 2Δ is dead. He must've found the poor suckers getting dragged down from the other dimensions."

The Axolotl stared at it. "Dragged down from what?"

Before the cloud could answer, the flock of sheep it had been speaking to earlier called, "Boss?" They had clearly just come from the direction of the bright blue line on the horizon—and their fleeces was now stained with soot. "We're losing refugees even faster in Dimension 2 Epsilon, what's the new plan?" Dimension 2 Epsilon?

The Axolotl felt a chill wind blow off the storm cloud; but its voice was just as hard as ever as it said, "I'll check it out myself." Its sunbeam pointed toward the Axolotl. "Maybe you oughta come along, I can explain it on the way." it said. "Just you." And the beam drifted down to highlight the Oracle.

"Yes, I understand."

Its bright gaze turned toward the apoc flock. "Hold down the fort until we get back."

"Got it, boss."

The Axolotl turned to the Oracle and said quietly, "You should wake up. I'll contact you with more when I can."

As strongly as he believed the mortals ought to be privy to whatever knowledge the gods had about the crisis, he didn't think traumatizing his Oracle wold benefit anyone.

####

Apparently, the Axolotl had only been told about half the situation. As they traveled along where Dimension 2 Delta used to be, the storm cloud caught him up on the rest. It had been telling the truth about everything in 2Δ being destroyed. It had simply burned too fast and too thoroughly, and it wasn't until the flames reached the edges of the universe and looped back to eat themselves that the inferno began to slow down.

Slow down... but not stop.

Why hadn't the Axolotl realized sooner? Why would there be so many firefighters on the scene, if the fire had gone out before the first ever arrived? What was the distant blue line of light he'd followed until he found the ATTF's center of operations, if not the light of still-burning stars? Why would VENDOR have come to provide new worlds for refugees, if everyone had been so sure 2Δ didn't have any refugees?

When the flames had reached the edge of 2Δ, they'd effortlessly incinerated the first dimensions bordering its edges, like a flame consuming a flash string in a magic trick, and moved straight across to the next second dimensions.

"Dimensions 2 Delta, 1 Gamma-Delta, and 1 Delta-Epsilon were completely incinerated before anyone arrived on the scene," the cloud said. "We lost 1 Alpha-Delta and 1 Delta-Zeta after we got here—it's a miracle the fire didn't cross from 2 Delta over 1 Alpha-Delta into 2 Alpha. 2 Gamma's over ninety percent gone; at this point we're trying to detach it from the closest first dimensions and hoping the flames will stop at its borders. And we're just trying to rescue who we can from 2 Epsilon and 2 Zeta, because every time we start to get the fire under control, it restarts itself."

The Axolotl felt sick. Five dimensions had been destroyed? Three more dimensions were still burning—one on the verge of being lost?

"Some of your survivors must've been dragged down into Dimension Zero," it went on. "Or into the miasma around it. I guess you must not have run into Zero itself in there, or else you wouldn't be here to tell us about it."

"I don't think Dimension Zero is in that miasma; I think the miasma is Dimension Zero. It had some properties of a spaciotemporal singularity... except it's... big. Big but—all in one place. And there's time happening, but all in one moment." He was in no fit state to try to explain this. He wasn't sure he even understood himself.

"Huh," the storm said. "Never seen anything like that before. I guess that explains where the rubble from 2Δ went, but—I have no idea how the physics in there must be working."

"I didn't see any rubble. Would there be any? If everything was destroyed—gods, souls, afterlives, dreams..."

"Subatomic ashes. The dimension's matter still oughta be somewhere."

He tried to remember if he'd seen anything that might be subatomic ashes. All he could remember was the three dimensional stars and stardust that had fallen in—and the party, and the bleeding. "If it was there, I wouldn't know how to sense it."

By the time they reached the edge of Dimension 2 Epsilon, and a 2D plane once more safely covered up the shifting border of Dimension Zero, the distant line of light had grown into a sea of pallid blue flame: the hydrogen of countless two dimensional stars burning as their universe crumbled and crunched up. In the distance, beyond the fire's perimeter, the Axolotl could see the still-unburned flat constellations and nebulas—and the divine firefighters chopping and hacking the universe in twain ahead of the fire edge. He realized that fire crews he'd seen nervously milling about earlier were just a skeleton crew: the real firefighting force was out here.

The flames seemed reluctant to lick up into the third dimension; they clung hard to the second dimensions, barely even radiating heat into the neighboring universe. There was an eerie focused calm to the gods trying to stop the fires below—all the devastation beneath them, close enough to touch, and yet not touching them. Yet. 

Even as many firefighters as were out here trying to get the fire under control, they couldn't cover the entire perimeter; and so the storm cloud lead the Axolotl right up to the fire edge along a span that the stretched-thin firefighting force didn't currently have covered. They were close enough that a few of the storm's raindrops fell on the fire, making it sizzle out in some small spots, only for the inferno to roar back to life a moment later.

The storm spoke for the first time in several minutes: "I can't begin to tell you how, but it's like the fire's fighting back against us. Every time the fire crews get even a little bit under control, it erupts again. We've had to start breaking off the burning portions of reality to keep the fires from spreading to the rest of the dimension," it gestured at the gods at work cracking off an enormous slab of existence from the rest of the dimension to create a chasm half a galaxy wide between the fire and the as yet still safe portion of the universe. The separated portion buckled and bubbled in the fire like a melting piece of plastic. "And... even that's not enough. Cosmic fires aren't my speciality—but I'm told breaking a dimension is guaranteed to stop a fire. But this one just keeps finding a way to... jump across."

"What do you mean, 'jump across'?"

On the safe side of the chasm, at least a lightyear away, a perfectly well-behaved solar system randomly burst into a geyser of flames.

"Oh."

Firefighters rushed to the newly burning star. Several planets had already blackened, curled up, and crumbled to ashes. The ashes rained down into Dimension Zero.

The storm cloud turned their path toward the new fire, the Axolotl following close behind. "They don't even always pop up near the fire edge like this." (As though a flame jumping an entire lightyear away could be called "near.") "Half a dozen popped up at random throughout Dimension 2 Gamma before we even realized how this fire moved. And as if that isn't bad enough, if the fire isn't targeting mortals, I'll eat my fedora."

This time, the Axolotl decided not to tempt fate by asking how a fire could target anything.

The firefighters struggled to contain the new fire with a line of 3D flame-retardant foam. They weren't even trying to put the fire out, he realized; they'd given up the solar system for lost. They were only trying to keep the fire back from one planet: a disc-shaped world, already cracked from the way the heat had warped and bent this dimension's surface, surrounded by billions of glittery flecks. People. His frills flicked forward in alarm.

Rescuers were using planet-sized planes to scoop the bewildered two-dimensional people off their endangered dimension, like spatulas trying to rescue a pancake from a skillet in the fires of hell, and handing them off to other rescuers to relocate to one of the refugee planets VENDOR had supplied. But as the storm and Axolotl caught up the fire somehow found a way past the solid wall of 3D foam to ignite the moon orbiting the hapless planet.

And as if that wasn't enough, it sprung up on the people, too. The screaming populations of entire towns spontaneously caught fire. To his horror, the Axolotl understood now what the storm had meant by the fires targeting mortals. Reality warped and bent beneath them, twisting, melting; burning people were crushed together by the distortions in reality and fused together into dozen-mouthed wailing bodies. The overburdened plane of reality ripped and disintegrated like threadbare fabric over a candle, and people fell screaming into Dimension Zero before they could be caught.

The storm cloud flinched back with a flash of lightning. "Shoot—it is getting faster."

The Axolotl automatically lunged forward to help them. A split-second wall of shrieking lightning blocked his path and a gust of wind pushed him back. "Don't," the storm snapped. "Leave it to the professionals."

"Sorry." The Axolotl backed up a safe distance with the storm cloud, stomach twisting. "Is there any way I can help—?"

"No," the storm cloud said quickly. "This fire can pop up anywhere—it's already caught four firefighters, and they're trained to deal with this stuff. We can't risk it spreading to the third dimension."

He hated not helping—but unfortunately, he understood. "How did you put out the fires on the firefighters?"

"We didn't. We threw them into Dimension Zero."

The storm was right; there was nothing natural about a fire that could kill gods.

"I've gotta go find out the latest," it said. "Can you stay out of trouble for a few minutes?"

"Yes. I promise." Although it might be the hardest thing he'd ever done.

The storm cloud left the Axolotl; and the Axolotl watched the fire.

####

It went against every instinct in his body not to reach out to scoop up the falling dead.

He'd worked for eons as a psychopomp before switching to a career that gave him more of a voice in what happened to the souls he escorted. He'd met billions of species with billions of different ways of dying; he wasn't squeamish around corpses, injuries, rot, disease. He was comfortable around death. Heck, he and death had each other's phone numbers for emergencies—they regularly crossed paths at professional networking events. 

But there were some deaths worse than others, and there were fates worse than death. As he watched, an oval with thin little arms plummeted into a direction it couldn't even see, its body burning up; and then its ghost burned up, too. It would never join the eternal dance party, and the Axolotl wasn't sure whether it was the lucky one.

As he watched, the Axolotl noticed something strange. Like any populated world, there were probably millions to trillions of different species around this one, although at a glance the Axolotl could only spy a handful. But although all of them were eventually caught by the flames, there was only one species that seemed to be victim of spontaneous combustion—and that seemed to be falling into Dimension Zero: the people that looked like living geometric shapes.

When the storm returned, it was quieter; even its tornado spun more slowly. The Axolotl got the sense it hadn't received good news.

But it didn't share what it had received. It said, "I've seen my fair share of apocalypses, but I've never seen anything like this before. Whatever this fire is, it's not natural." The eye of the storm watched one of the melting people falling like cinders into the center of the multiverse, until even its sunbeam couldn't pierce the miasma. "Ten to one, I'd bet you something intelligent is doing that."

"Your stupid terrorist?"

The cloud laughed ruefully. "Yeah." It watched a moment longer; then sighed out a long gust of wind and tried to rally some of its earlier stoicism. "So. Those people you saw in Dimension Zero must be the mortals from the dimensions around 2Δ getting dragged in by the fire. You can see how they've been peeling off their planes when the flames get 'em. I'm amazed they survived the fall into Dimension Zero."

"Survived" maybe wasn't the word the Axolotl would choose; but he didn't know how to begin to explain the horrors he'd seen down there.

He tore his eyes from the terrible rain of corpses. "Not all of them," he said. "I know for a fact at least one of the survivors is from 2Δ. I know him. I've met him before."

"You have." The storm managed to look dubious at this. "You're sure it wasn't an alternate of the same guy from a neighboring dimension?"

"I talked to him in Dimension 2 Delta. He remembered meeting me. It's him."

"Huh." The storm processed that silently. "Nope. I've got no explanation for that."

####

(Thanks for reading!! If the art lured you in and this is the first chapter you read, this is part 2 of a 5-or-6 part fic about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. Here's part one if you missed it. I'm posting one chapter a week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna watch the Axolotl slowly discover just how much of a monster that silly triangle he likes really is.

It's ALSO chapter 62 of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. I'm gonna fix the chapter numbering once I know how many chapters this plot is. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a oneshot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: nobody commented on the fact that I was calling Bill's dimension "Dimension 2 Delta" rather than just "the second dimension"—but I hope that, somewhere in your hearts, some of you were wondering what I had to differentiate his dimension from that necessitated labeling it Delta. :)

I think this is probably the least horrifying out of all the chapters. Because of that, I'm worried it's kinda boring, but that might just be because I'm comparing it to the undead corpse party. And also Bill isn't here.

It's also the least edited chapter because I may or may not have spent the last three days drawing the second dimension burning instead of writing and ran 30 minutes past posting time doing last minute rewrites lmao. So uh, lemme know if there are any typos, sentences that don't make sense because I changed how I wanted to phrase them halfway through and didn't notice, weird internal contradictions, whatever.

But more importantly let me know what y'all think!!)

[wickworks]

Lancer Tactics dialogue layout crisis of faith

(from this month's backer update)

Every so often, I'll run into something in development that eats away at me until it pushes me to a crisis of faith and I have a breakdown, burn down a bunch of work, and build something better from the ashes. These are moments of transformation and we're almost always able to come out the other side with something much better than what we started with.

This all sounds very dramatic until you take a step back and see the issue in question is just, like, the layout of a menu. But if medieval priests were able to have schisms over angels on pins I can have strong feelings about graphic design, dammit!

This month's episode revolved around how we're doing character dialogue. For reference the plan was to do a standard 4-slot visual-novel talking heads layout. I call it a 4-slot because there's usually four positions that characters can stand; two on the left, two on the right:

I had it ingame, and it was working. But... something felt off. Do you see the difference between every one of the above examples and this?

It's all about perspective, baby.

Answer: all the character art in those examples are drawn at a slight angle so they can be flipped back and forth to be made like they're looking at each other.

Trying to do this with the perspective we chose early — straight on — makes for a chorus line of weirdos who are looking directly into your soul as they ostensibly chat with each other. Credulity is strained; the illusion of these puppets interacting in the same space is paper-thin.

(I was skeptical of choosing this perspective for this reason, but we ultimately went with it to make the customizable assets in the portrait maker easier to fit together)

We tried a bunch of different layouts, but they all at least one of these problems:

they'd stare into your soul while ostensibly directing comments elsewhere.

they felt like text messages; this would be fine if that's what we were going for, but we wanted something that could represent face-to-face conversations. (Tactical Breach Wizards was able to pull this style off because they had little 3D dioramas to go along with it)

or, most damning of all, they felt like zoom calls.

So, my heart aflutter and spirit in want, I spent a day doing a research dive into various dialogue layouts (bless the Game UI Database!) to see if any other games had managed to pull this character art perspective off. I ended up with this massive non-chronological taxonomic tree:

(fullsize here)

The type of layout that particularly caught my eye was this style where each character had their own little box. These layouts borrow a concept from comic books called "closure" where the space and time between characters are left blank. Freed from the constraints of trying to simulate a single space, these layouts allow the reader to fill in the blanks with something that feels more true-to-life than anything we'd be able to render ourselves.

I was especially impressed with the dynamism of Tales of Symphonia and The World Ends With You; rather than sticking to single slots they would animate the entire panels moving around to indicate motion an relative position of characters.

So we threw out the old code and copied them. Here's what we've come up with:

We'll be able to have portraits interact, like smacking each other (I felt like a kid hitting two action figures together, lol)

We can also apply effects like princess-leia-holograms and full-screen "lighting" effects like warning banners:

Carpenter and I came up with a number of arrangements that the portraits can smoothly transition between:

I've also implemented support for choices during a dialogue, potentially leading to branching paths.

Overall, I feel SO much better about this system than our initial designs. It might feel a little more cartoony, but I think we're making a cartoony game so that's not a problem.

Whew. We bit a lot off to chew with this project. I feel like I just made a second visual novel game engine inside of the first. Fingers crossed that it all ends up worth it.

[brittle-doughie]

This can be a situation of 'what if' since the five beast were the first ones then what if they would be the first who began with this whole yandere chaos like- they are the ultimates obsessive over y/n cookie the fallen heroes have the first and high level O_O

-🧁 anon

What If: The First.

Something has to start somewhere. Y/N Cookie is a figure beloved by all, sometimes even a little too much from certain, no wait, a large majority of the cookie population on Earthbread.

They’ve seen a lot from what levels of obsession could offer from simple clinginess to the alters and shrines many create amidst their sickly love.

Y/N Cookie was surprisingly no stranger to these gestures. After all, they’ve seen these similar types of obsessive love elsewhere.

Long ago, many years back….you were a Primordial Cookie alongside your long lasting companions, the Five Beast Cookies.

You remembered all the times you’ve had with them.

The times you laughed. Shadow Milk Cookie would tell you many things about this world, but he also liked to sprinkle in some humor too. He’d even do a sort of jester act by using a puppet show, it never failed to make you chuckle at least once…

The times you chose to help others that made Mystic Flour Cookie warm with you. Your choices to make decisions that befitted your Virtue of Compassion was something of a spectacle for her. She adored that you did not question anything about showing compassion for others, some things don’t always have to come down to choice.

The times you felt safe. Red Spice and Silent Salt Cookie were your protectors. You were a cookie of compassion, but that shouldn’t mean that cookies should push you around. It made the two cookies unhappy and advise the perpetrator to back off. Red Spice was all show while Silent Salt was all quiet, but both make sure that you wouldn’t get harmed under their watch.

The times you loved. Eternal Sugar Cookie was always happy to see you. Compassion and Happiness always worked well together, so it only made sense that you were the closest to her. She’d let you join her on her cloud as you two talked the day away, Eternal Sugar being happy that she got to spend time with you in any form.

Oh, how things went south when power corrupts.

One by one, their will crumbled under the weight of their own strength. The Five became twisted apostles of evil and brought forth darkness and devastation.

This corruption had also brought upon unfortunate side effects to their love for you, twisting and change until it’s nothing but sickly and dark.

Shadow Milk Cookie embraced deceit into his heart, controlling and manipulating the cookies around you. His plan to make you belong to him would be to drive everyone you knew away from you whether it be by his twisted mind tricks or more lethal methods. You’d have no one left but him…

Red Spice Cookie only brought nothing but destruction to whoever dared to challenge his sick obsession with you. No cookie could ever survive an encounter with him, only reduced to smoldering crumbs on the ground. No cookie has ever loved you like he has, because there’d be no one left that could…

Silent Salt Cookie’s protectiveness reached insane levels you’d never expect from them. Cookies that so much as raise a hand in your presence are swiftly cut down by Silent Salt. Cookies can’t even look at you without Silent Salt putting an end to their existence. Their worry for you, and you overall, was worth the lives they stomped on.

No other cookie mattered to Mystic Flour Cookie anymore that wasn’t you. She just didn’t see why you should care for any of these insignificant specks of grain as she casually waves her arm, reducing the whole landscape around her into nothing. No longer did choice matter to her, the decisions she once valued mean little to her if it didn’t help you or her out.

What was once happiness has now turned into a deadly and sickly obsession with you. Eternal Sugar Cookie’s mind hazed with nothing but thoughts of you, unable to get you out of her mind. NEVER wanting to get you out of her mind. Only you could get her off her cloud, she’ll simply yawn and turn away anyone else. She believes her love for you triumphs above anyone else, gleefully obliterating anyone who thinks could challenge her…

You can still hear their screams and shocked gasps when the Creators locked them away, their pained cries and shouts all becoming static in your head.

The Ancient Heroes…

They’ve done well in resisting the temptation of power unlike your former comrades, their affection remaining moderate as a result.

Though, one of them have your doubts..

[lycheebloom]

delirium : yan. shadow milk cookie drabble

tw : yandere shadow milk cookie, extreme psychological manipulation, implied mind break, obsessive & possessive behavior

epilogue to..!

.𖦹 .° Peculiar.

.𖦹 .° That would be an accurate description of his feelings towards you.

.𖦹 .° An irrelevant cookie you were depicted as on the surface that many could not see past, yet he could not bear to lay a finger on you despite all the power he held. How strange, indeed!

.𖦹 .° As the Master of Deceit himself, should he not be better equipped in handling such situations? He frequently asked him this question as well. Alas, it seemed there were.. exceptions to his very perspective on cookiekind.

.𖦹 .° A phenomenon of a being, his deeply prized puppet—one could even argue you were his favorite.

.𖦹 .° Shadow Milk Cookie walked about in the void where an endless abyss laid, a shadowy labyrinth crafted by his own hand. In the abundance of eyes sprawled an indecipherable web of lies and trickery, entangling any unfortunate enough to step into it.

.𖦹 .° With a twirl of a wand, he tore forth a rift in the dark space—stepping in as the world twisted and turned to his will. As he stepped into the portal, his surroundings distorted until your intangent form pieced itself together bit by bit into a familiar shape he adored—carrying your features that he would wordlessly trace over on nameless nights.

.𖦹 .° Your weathered state was evident through your strained muscles, a posture slumped against velvet pillows, and your head cast down. You remained as motionless as a marionette with its strings cut, even as Shadow Milk Cookie stepped closer.

.𖦹 .° “(Name)!~” He cooed, excitement bouncing off of his voice. He lowered his head, reaching eye level with you—despite your gaze being cast down to the floor. A small frown replaced his expression upon your lack of response, the man tilting your chin up with his index finger.

.𖦹 .° “It’s not nice to ignore people, dear!” He smiled, tilting his head at an abnormal angle. “Much less your lover of all people, (Name) Cookie..!” He dramatically sighed, lowering his hand to place on your shoulder.

.𖦹 .° You no longer pulled away from his touch, nor did you resist his advances. You took in his sickeningly sweet proclamations and vows of adoration, his sugarcoated acts of bloodshed, amidst all other things he did in the name of his love for you. Wasn’t he such a thoughtful romantic? An obsessive maniac.

.𖦹 .° With time, affection withers intelligence, as it cracks open an opportunity for the yearning heart to abandon all lucidity.

.𖦹 .° Shadow Milk Cookie almost regretted breaking you down. Almost.

.𖦹 .° If it were not for the countless number of times he had already done this.

.𖦹 .° For what entertainment would there be in letting this small ordeal with you suffice? No, you were worth something much more than to be discarded like his many broken toys.

.𖦹 .° With a tug on a string, he’ll rebuild you. He’ll shatter your entire reality of life and death, the limits of logicity and grasp of vanity, molding your thoughts and being to his taste. He needs to be your everything, for him to possess your mind, body and very soul. He craved the essence that made up every sacred atom of yours—Oh if he could, he’d conjoin himself with you so that you won’t even dare to think of anything else.

.𖦹 .° Don’t deny him, don’t fight your fate. Resistance is futile, he’ll be easier on you if you accept the truth as it is!

.𖦹 .° For your bond with him transcended that of sanity itself.

.𖦹 .° So let him guide you, and everything will be alright. He’ll take care of you, his precious little star.

[kodasmind]

BAD BLOOD RETURN

An: that match was a mess so I tried to make it better (keyword tried)☹️☹️

Rhea Ripley x Reader

The lights inside Atlanta’s State Farm Arena flashed in rhythm with the roaring crowd. The air was electric, buzzing with excitement as the main event at *Bad Blood* was underway. You were hidden backstage, watching from the shadows as the ring became the stage for a brutal battle between two of the fiercest competitors in WWE—Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan. This was no ordinary title match; it was laced with tension, betrayal, and bad blood, stretching far beyond the championship Liv had around her waist.

You hadn’t been seen for weeks, rumors circulating about your injury after a backstage attack. No one, not even Rhea, knew you were in the building tonight. The plan was simple: wait for the right moment to strike. You had a personal stake in this fight, and you weren’t about to let Liv have the last laugh.

The match was already chaotic from the start. Liv, quick and scrappy, darted around Rhea’s raw power, using her agility to avoid heavy strikes and counter when she could. Rhea, meanwhile, stalked her like a predator, throwing Liv into the ropes and slamming her to the mat with authority. The audience was eating it up—every near fall, every reversal, had them on the edge of their seats.

And above the ring, Dominik Mysterio, Liv’s new ally after his betrayal of Rhea, hung in a steel cage. He’d been a thorn in Rhea’s side ever since their fallout, constantly inserting himself into her business, stirring the pot between her and Liv. Tonight, the cage was meant to keep him from interfering, a symbolic punishment for all his past sins. But knowing Dom, you had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy.

The turning point came in the middle of the match. Dominik, ever the opportunist, had somehow managed to jimmy the cage door open. The crowd noticed first, gasping in surprise as Dom’s legs flailed helplessly, his body dangling halfway out of the cage. He was stuck, suspended like a piñata, swinging back and forth in the air. The absurdity of it sent ripples of laughter through the audience.

Rhea, catching sight of the spectacle, paused mid-move. Her icy glare turned upward, locking onto Dominik with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. Her lip curled into a wicked smirk. Liv, taking advantage of Rhea’s distraction, attempted a roll-up from behind, but Rhea kicked out immediately, sending Liv crashing to the mat.

The referee backed away, confused by what was happening above, but the crowd’s attention was now split between the ring and Dominik’s embarrassing predicament. Rhea, with her eyes still glued to Dom, rolled out of the ring. She stormed to the timekeeper’s area, tossing aside chairs and searching beneath the ring until she found her weapon of choice—a kendo stick.

The crowd erupted in cheers as Rhea marched toward Dominik, who was still dangling awkwardly from the cage. He had just managed to free himself, his feet now barely touching the top rope, when Rhea arrived. She cracked the kendo stick across his back with a satisfying *thwack*.

“Happy birthday to me!” she yelled, a wicked grin on her face as she raised the stick again.

Dom howled in pain, trying to scramble out of the way, but Rhea hit him again for good measure, sending him tumbling out of the cage and onto the floor, clutching his back. The crowd loved every second of it. Dom, who had tried to be the puppet master of this entire feud, was now reduced to a laughingstock.

But Rhea wasn’t done yet. She tossed the kendo stick aside and slid back into the ring, focusing her attention back on Liv. Liv, who had recovered from the earlier slam, met Rhea head-on, launching herself off the ropes with a flying crossbody. But Rhea caught her mid-air, showing off her raw power, before slamming Liv down with a vicious spinebuster.

The momentum shifted back in Rhea’s favor as she stalked Liv around the ring, each strike landing harder than the last. Every time Liv tried to mount a comeback, Rhea shut her down with brutal efficiency. It looked like Rhea was about to end it, lifting Liv for her signature Riptide finisher.

And then, the unexpected happened.

Raquel Rodriguez, and the crowd roared in surprise(yes I know it was quiet😭😭). Raquel had been out of action for weeks due to an injury, but it was clear she was back with a vengeance. She stormed down the ramp, her towering presence unmistakable. Rhea’s focus shifted, her eyes narrowing as she watched Raquel approach the ring with murderous intent.

Before Rhea could react, Raquel slid into the ring and charged at her, leveling her with a massive boot to the face. The referee, distracted by Liv, didn’t see a thing. Raquel wasted no time, raining down blow after blow on Rhea, targeting her midsection with vicious forearms and kicks.

Liv smirked from the corner, nodding in approval as Raquel continued to assault Rhea. The referee, still conveniently distracted, had no idea what was happening behind his back. Rhea, who had been dominating the match, now found herself outnumbered and overwhelmed by Raquel’s ambush.

That’s when you made your move.

Sending the crowd into a frenzy. No one had expected you to return tonight, least of all Liv and Raquel. You sprinted down the ramp, your heart pounding as adrenaline surged through your veins. The element of surprise was yours, and you weren’t going to waste it.

Sliding into the ring, you tackled Raquel to the mat, throwing punch after punch as the crowd roared in approval. Raquel, shocked by your sudden appearance, scrambled to her feet, but you were relentless. You hit her with a series of forearms, driving her back into the corner.

Raquel, furious, swung at you with a wild right hand, but you ducked, narrowly avoiding the strike. Her fist, however, connected with Rhea, who had just staggered to her feet. Rhea crumpled to the mat, and the referee, finally turning around, saw the impact.

It all happened in a blur. The referee called for the bell, signaling the end of the match. The crowd erupted into a mix of cheers and boos as the referee declared Rhea the winner by disqualification. Liv, meanwhile, celebrated on the outside, clutching her championship with a smug grin. She hadn’t won the match, but she had kept her title, which was all that mattered.

You stood there, chest heaving, as Raquel glared at you from across the ring. The two of you exchanged heated words, the tension palpable as the crowd chanted for more. Rhea, slowly recovering from the blow, rose to her feet, her eyes flicking between you and Raquel.

Despite the chaos, despite the DQ finish, Rhea had come out on top—at least in spirit. You helped her to her feet, the two of you standing tall as Liv and Raquel retreated up the ramp. This was far from over. The battle lines had been drawn, and the war was just beginning.

Rhea smirked at you, her eyes gleaming with a mix of gratitude and amusement. “Took you long enough,” she teased, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth.

You shrugged, a smirk of your own forming. “Had to make a grand entrance, didn’t I?”

The two of you shared a brief, silent understanding before turning to face the crowd, arms raised high. Tonight was just the beginning. There would be more battles, more betrayals, but for now, Rhea stood victorious, and you were by her side, ready for whatever came next.