#...neither of those exist in this dimension

[the-barefoot-hatter]

winter holidays at the mystery shack (party billiam edition)

Stan celebrates what he calls "Cash-mas", which is just slapping a cheap felt santa hat and a 300% Christmas special markup on anything- and several things he can't- get away with in the gift shop

more sincerely, the Pines do a fairly low-key Hanukkah. if the twins are visiting, they do a much showier double christmas/hanukkah celebration

And Bill... well...

No one is entirely sure if it's a Euclidean thing or just a... Bill thing. But he's SO enthusiastic!

HAPPY WINTER FUNTIME BOYS & GIRLS!

[franki-lew-yo]

And now for something completely different...

My personal headcanons for all the animated Disney feature films and shorts that have shared universes goes as follows:

>"The Small One", Aladdin, The Sword in the Stone, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Frog all share a universe

I don't know what it is that made me place them together. I guess you could call this universe "Renaissance-prime" or something. It just FEELS like they kind of belong in the same timeline.

I hc that the kingdom the Beast is a prince to is NOT a French territory, but rather 18th century Maldonia. OBVIOUSLY the Beast's parents had their youngest son live abroad in France-- and then promptly forgot about and didn't care that him or their servants they set to look after him disappeared for fifteen years. And yes I am therefor implying that Belle and Beast are ancestors to Naveen~

>Hercules, The Emperor’s New Groove and Home on the Range all share a universe.

Their artstyle and comedic style all kind of fall in line with each other. Aaaand if you're wondering "well then how did Hercules and Aladdin crossover that one time in the Hercules cartoon?"; OBVIOUSLY they dimension-hopped!

Also, obviously, I don't take the cartoon's and sequels' continuities too seriously. Like hell would I ever insult ENG's honor by trying to make Emperor's New School a legit part of this or the other film's continuity.

>"Once Upon a Winter Time" and Sleeping Beauty are in the same universe.

Literally just the art styles looking similar again. Good ole Mary Blair.

>"The Goddess of Spring", "Night on Bald Mountain", Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and "The Nutcracker Suite" all share a universe.

For any of the 'golden-era' of Disney movies, it's weird to insist they fit in exactly to any contemporary ones. There's something incredibly 40s-esque about the vibe of all these toons, which is why I decided to make them all one in the same continuity wise.

>"The Pastoral Symphony", Peter Pan, "The Legend of Johnny Appleseed", Cinderella, "Legend of Sleepy Hollow", Alice in Wonderland, "Peter and the Wolf", "Casey at the Bat" and "The Martins and the Coys" all share a universe.

I don't know who was the artist(s) on Ichabod/Peter Pan specifically, but something about this 'silver-age' of Disney films just feels like they all belong together, y'know? Like, these stories all take place in the same homogenized universe where everything is a Disney-fied version of world mythologies, history and politics.

>Pocahontas, Mulan, Brother Bear, "The Firebird Suite" and The Hunchback of Notre Dame share a universe.

Simply put: the vibe is 'uber serious' in these films. Magic and divinity still definitely exist albeit in sparce doses, and not as loosely as they do in the previous universes.

>Dumbo, "Lambert the Sheepish Lion", "Dance of the Hours", "Little Bear Bongo", "Pecos Bill", "The Tale of Mr. Toad" and "The Whale who Wanted to Sing at the Met" are in the same universe.  

This is a universe where animals and humans have the exact same relationships with each other they do in real life- it's just that animals also happen to talk, go to work or wear clothes.

I'm pretty sure the implication IS that Lambert takes place in the Dumbo-universe given that it's the same stork that delivers Dumbo who delivers Lambert.

>The Rescuers and The Jungle Book share a universe.

Not a 'fantastical' world per-say, but one where on occasion some children are able to talk to animals who have their own societies apart from them...

>Tangled, Frozen, Moana and Big Hero 6 all share a universe.

Is it even a headcanon that Frozen and Tangled are in the same universe given that Rapunzel and Eugene cameo in Frozen?

Anyway that universe is the same as Moana and Big Hero 6 by the way for the way in which real-world countries do exist in universe but so to do fake countries and alt histories; Corona, Arendelle, San FranTokyo, ect.

>Tarzan and Lilo & Stitch for basically no reason.

*Marge voice*: I just think it'd be neat!

>"The Old Mill", Bambi, The Fox and the Hound, Lady and the Tramp and "Blue Bayou" all share a universe.

I call this the 'serious business' universe, where only occasional outbursts of songs from characters are expected, but even then usually in diegetic sense. No magic that we're aware of.

This a Disney-esque take on reality.

>Oliver & Co, 101 Dalmatians and The Aristocats share a universe.

Similar to the last universe but more edgy, 'hip, and angular in style that fits alongside each other better than they do Bambi or Lady and the Tramp.

>Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Wall.E, Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life and Wreck-It Ralph share a universe.

Yes, Wreck-It Ralph. No, I refuse to consider that sequel canon. It can stay in the shadow realm along with Toy Story 4...

Anyway, I call this the 'in plain sight' universe. It's a normal human CGI-universe but we follow it from the perspective of animals, children's-monsters or inanimate objects. And yes, that does mean that Wall.E's future is inevitable but I never said that that specifically killed all the characters in it. Hopefully all the main casts of FN, TS, ABL, Monster's Inc, and WiR are all long dead by the time the world gets really bad in Wall.E.

>Soul, "Loop" and Inside Out share a universe.

More 'real' universe than the previous one, but also one where souls and/people's emotions have a complex world all their own which we're privy to.

>Up, Turning Red, Ratatouille and Luca are all in the same universe.

I placed them together because the style and character designs feel alike to me, but also how these stories are about fantastical/odd things that happen in a world of cartoony CG people and the world just kind of gets use to it:

Like, an old man took off in his house with balloons strapped to it for the amazon; a family has the ability to turn into giant red panda demons; a rat is smart enough to cook and got his own restaurant; gillmen just exist in Italy. Yeah. That happened. Don't ask too many questions.

Also 9/11 isn't talked about as much as it should be. There, now even Mr. Enter is happy!

>Encanto, Brave and Coco share the same universe.

Encanto is simply the only case where characters occasionally burst into song to show their emotions, but maybe that's only through the lens of us watching the Madrigal's story.

Simply put, I made these all in the same universe on account of them taking place in what seem to be real-world countries in cultures where in Frozen/Tangled everyone lives in a 'likeness' to other cultures.

>"Vincent", The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Frankenweenie share the same universe.

Santa is believed-in undoubtedly in this universe, though no humans are ever actually aware of or know how to get to the holiday worlds. No one wants to believe in Jack Skellington and monsters except for Halloween time and it's through that complete dissonance that the other Holidays didn't even know about each other for the longest time. The human world is a gentrified basic-place of big eyes, suburbs, disturbed white kids in the suburbs, true crime and false-pretenses. Fantastical/weird/inordinary things happen in this world but they're kind of just taken at face value, like a kid who brought his dog back to life.

Unrelated -in that they aren't Disney so they don't count-, but I think Corpse Bride and og Beetlejuice fit way more in line and style with each other than they do anywhere near Nightmare Before Christmas' universe. Sandworms, however, can slither through different dimensions, as I did within my comic.

- Roger Rabbit -

Roger Rabbit is a world where toons, puppets and animated characters are real and exist alongside real humans. Toons are functionally immortal and can only effect humans and real-world phenomenon in so many way though; Elsa can only control cartoon wind and ice but not real snowstorms. Some are more active and engaged in this universe than others. Baby Herman is actually AN EXCEPTION rather than a rule to toons acting nothing like their screen-selves.

For many a 'storied toon' -a character from a show with a serialized continuity or movie with it's own backstories and roles for characters in-universe- it's kind of messed up: characters are plucked off the page of their worlds, told they're fictional and everything they and all their friends know is a lie, and then also make them pal around right alongside their reanimated sworn enemies for press photos like it's nothing. If you're Simba and you and Nala are having a great new life -BOOM- you're told you're not real, have to accept it, drawn down into yourselves as children and told to sit happily in a groupshot with your dead father and the uncle who killed your dead father. Why aren't you smiling? A lot of 'storied toons' demand to be put back 'on the page' rather than face this reality; a reality which is much easier for in-universe manic and/or magic characters who can accept this revelation, or continuity-less episodic characters who are down with realizing they're toons, like Mickey and friends or the Looney Tunes obvious do.

Which of course leaves the Winnie the Pooh-s, Onward, The Incredibles, Elemental, Cars, Robin Hood, Zootopia, The Black Cauldron, Chicken Little, Atlantis the Lost Empire, James and the Giant Peach, Treasure Planet, The Great Mouse Detective, The Lion King, Dinosaur, Strange World, Wish, Raya and a crap ton of Silly Symphony, package film segments and Mickey Mouse friends shorts in a void as their own worlds for Maleficent to ruin. 

Oh and in relation to that above mentioned reference, I don't actually factor in Kingdom Hearts or Lorcana. Ideas like Maleficent being made aware of multiple universes besides her own and wanting to muck shirts up is a generally good concept, but I ain't factoring any Final Fantasy stuff into this.

Also, btw, I expect no Avengers-styled megacrossovers between characters who share a universe. That's not my style, fanfiction wise. I really prefer the Stephen King-approach to crossovers; they share a timeline and universe but there's no league of extremely ordinary gentlemen.

[fagtainsparklez]

SPARKLEZ!

You wouldn't believe the things I've seen. Or maybe you would. What do I know?

Worlds upon worlds of wonder have embraced my many selves. I'm living a thousand lives at once. And those are just the lives I'm aware of. For instance, in a place called Middle Earth I am reborn a beautiful elf queen. And under the ice shield of a moon called Europa I am a strand of plankton. And in a world we both know well, I'm a bunch of little girls who look just like me, and maybe other things too... Anyway, my umbrella consciousness has reformed for just a moment; my caretaker, in his mercy, has allowed me to show you these things.

But you definitely won't believe the most amazing thing I've seen. Lately I've been looking through a window... A window into bygone years. A man sits in front of a screen, speaking his soul to the world while playing a game. I think I know who he is!

I see this man forming friendships with those who also speak to the world. I know who they are too. They project themselves as tiny box figures into a world made of boxes. It's so much less detailed than the world where the man and his friends sit. I would not have known Ruxomar and it's sister dimensions to be so childlike in appearance except by this contrast!

The days go on as the friends play. The boxlike world is ruled by two gods. Of course I know who they are. The man is faced with a choice between the two. His life is riddled with choices! And like the stubborn idealist he is, he carves out a middle path. He'll take neither god. He'll have a goddess all to his own.

He created me.

A man named Jordan Maron created the goddess Ianite in a world beyond worlds. And Jordan Maron looks just like you. He is one of your countless alternate selves. He looks so much less boxy! I think that if I did not already know you and Spark so well, I would call him my favorite version.

Now I grasp the truth I have been seeking all my life. I have see what is above gods. It is ____________.

My umbrella consciousness won't hold much longer. Let me say a few choice words before the final goodbye between this version of you and this version of me. Thank you for choosing to create me. I believe that had the other you not made that choice in that far off world, none of my present selves would exist. In a strange sense, you are my god. Thank you for believing in your creation enough to make it real. Thank you for continuing to love me and make choices for my wellbeing. I hope another you loves another me in another world soon.

If Jordan looks out the window one of these days, he might be able to see me.

Not even creeping. Just fyi.

Forever Your Lady

[corsairier]

dc x dp prompt: in which Danny accidentally becomes an alien

So I'm not super caught up on the modern day dp fandom lore, but what i am very familiar with is pre-2016 dp fandom lore. And that lore tends to take a much more sci-fi slant than a lot of the current magic stuff I've been seeing circulating around, so... what if we took that and put it in a batfam crossover?

Picture this: Danny is sixteen, he's told his parents he's a halfa, and despite all his fears, things actually went... well? They apologize for how they've treated Phantom, they reaffirm they still love him as their son, and things are surprisingly okay.

Except... ghosts are still their biggest interest in life, and researching ghosts is their entire passions and careers. And they've got a kid right there who not only is a ghost, but a rare type of half ghost who could give them a completely different set of data than any of their previous research! And he's their kid, so why not just go and ask Danny how he's feeling about helping them out with their research?

And Danny is, well... his friends and Jazz are all super happy for him that Maddie and Jack accepted him, and they think it's sweet at first that they're trying to bond with Danny over this. So he feels a bit pressured to go along with it, even though it feels incredibly invasive to have his parents asking him all these things. But they're his parents, and he does feel grateful for them not trying to vivisect him, so it can't be that bad, right?

But it just escalates.

His parents have never really been great with boundaries, especially when it comes to ghosts, and at some point Danny realizes that there's not really a point where either of them will truly stop. They keep asking him for blood samples, skin samples, hair samples, marrow samples, anything that can help understand him inside and out. They know ectoplasm can bring inanimate things to life or infuse life into the dead, so it quickly becomes Hey Danny, what if we injected human blood into a ghost? And Come watch us infuse ectoplasm into these frozen mice! and Danny, come help us out with this project!

Vlad won't even come in between any of this, not after Danny let slip that he wasn't the only halfa out there. Maddie's affections are a lot less attractive to him when it feels like being a lab rat under her microscope, and the coward seems more than happy to leave Danny to his fate while he goes and lives it up in his mansions. His friends are sympathetic, sure, but they don't really get it beyond usual "parents suck" complaining. it's not like Danny is actually in any danger.

Jazz at least takes it seriously, but she's off at university by then and she can't just drop everything to get into fights with their parents telling them to leave Danny alone. So Danny starts spending a bit more time than he probably should exploring the Ghost Zone and tumbling through portals, just to see where it leads him. It's stress relief, you know. Jazz would approve of him getting out of the house to clear his head.

The fact that some of these portals happen to connect dimensions isn't something he's expecting.

Neither is the fact that dimensions have their own rules, and in order to pass between dimensions, they must undergo changes as needed to fit those rules. Someone with magic cannot exist as is in a dimension without it, and the dead cannot walk in a dimension where the rules of life and death are drawn by different lines.

Danny winds up in Gotham with a body that feels unlike his own, the majority of his powers and his ghost half seemingly beyond his reach. He still thinks he's human (probably), but something about him isn't quite right. He feels odd, where he lands, and something about the air and the weather just doesn't sit right in his bones.

He's hungering for... ectoplasm, maybe? He can't put a finger on it, only that he's starving without it. Danny can't quite figure out how to get his way back—and he's not sure if he really wants to, if it means going back to playing house with his parents.

Then the Bats, from their own perspective, stumble across a medical mystery—one that doesn't want to be solved.

One that's absolutely sick of people trying to research everything about him.

And there's no way a being like him could be from Earth, right?

Batman is convinced he's an alien seeking amnesty on Earth. Tim's got his bets on an experiment escaped from some dark and corrupt lab somewhere. Dick's thinking the kid's a Meta with the kind of powers those with bad intentions would kill to have.

Jason, for what it's worth, really just wants to know how this bandaged and ill kid ended up in one of his safehouses—especially considering it's not accessible from the ground floor.

---

I've been chipping away at a fic for this, but I'm not sure if it'd be something modern dpxdc fans would be interested in? Feel free to use this idea yourselves for anything if it piques your interest LOL, just credit me in the AN if you post it to AO3. I just think it's really funny to have Danny having incredibly boring "i feel i can't enforce boundaries with my parents" problems and then the Batfam seeing what it all looks like from an outsider's POV and coming to some very severe conclusions based on what they can pick up on because it's really not a good look.

Danny voice. No my parents are fine except for all the experimenting on me. Jason voice. THE WHAT.

[princessaffirms]

the REAL YOU is your SOUL — and that’s what SHIFTS realities 🌌✨

SOUL SHIFTING SERIES: PART I

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

there are so many beliefs, religions and philosophies regarding who or WHAT we are at our core — outside of our physical bodies, outside of the 3D realm. this post discusses what really shifts when we jump from one reality to the next.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

♡ NOTE: this series of posts (my soul shifting series) dives into my perspective on the topic of reality shifting and how IT IS OUR SOUL (our pure consciousness, our true self) that CHOOSES new realities and SHIFTS to them.

that being said, recall the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE of the law of assumption: whatever you assume becomes YOUR truth in YOUR reality. you and i can assume different things, and both are still true. neither is invalid, you’re just experiencing a subjective reality where YOUR assumptions are true, and the same goes for me. as always, take whatever resonates with your soul and inner knowing. omit what doesn’t!

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

⭐️✨ so WHO exactly is the “REAL YOU”?

your soul/true self is comprised of many overlapping LAYERS, but ultimately, they are all part of the same whole:

• CONSCIOUSNESS / awareness: the pure “I am” that observes everything. it is presence itself.

• your SUBCONSCIOUS: the deeper layer of your consciousness that accepts dominant assumptions and impresses them onto the reflection of your outer world.

• your 4D REALITY: the world of your inner self: — your assumptions, thoughts, beliefs, imagination. it’s where you shift realities from.

• your MIND: not your brain (that’s the physical organ in the 3D realm through which the mind operates), but your subjective experience of YOUR reality: your emotions, intuition, and inner knowing.

• your SOUL: the part of you that existed before this body and will exist long after. it’s infinite, timeless, and formless — not tied to any one version, timeline, or identity. it’s the core of your being, the part of you that chooses experiences, shifts realities, and holds every version of you within it. it’s not limited by the 3D world. it projects into it, like light through a prism. your soul holds your consciousness, your subconscious, your imagination, your inner knowing — all the parts of you that make up your power to create.

these terms might sound separate, but they’re really just different perspectives on the SAME thing. they describe different aspects, dimensions, or layers of YOU. the you that creates, chooses, and shifts. some people describe it as God, higher self, etc., but ultimately it all points to the same force. to the same power. the same source.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

⭐️✨ so WHAT does this MEAN?

your physical body is not what shifts realities — your SOUL does. your body is beautiful, sacred, and part of this 3D expression, but it’s not the source of your power. it’s a PROJECTION of your soul.

so when you shift, it’s not necessarily your physical body “moving” somewhere. it’s your awareness tuning into a new version of reality, and your 3D reflects that change.

♡ FOR EXAMPLE: if you’re shifting to a reality where everything is the same except you’re instagram famous, that’s what will be projected in the 3D. your physical body will still be the same. it’s still YOU. but it’s ultimately a REFLECTION of your soul. everything in your reality is the same. all that changes is that you’re now instagram famous, because you assumed so! you shifted to that specific reality!

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

✨ THEREFORE…

you simply chose to focus into this physical timeline, this identity, this version of life. you did so in the same you might pick a song to dance to, or a book to read.

and just like you chose this reality/timeline, you can choose again. you can shift. pivot. recreate.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

📝✨ NOTE for those who may feel overwhelmed by this topic:

if you’ve struggled with dissociation or anxiety before, i want you to know that you are safe. your experience is valid. and shifting is not necessarily about abandoning the life you’re in (unless you want to). it’s about realizing that you are NEVER STUCK.

you are the author, not the victim. you are the creator, the source, the soul. not the illusion.

reality shifting is EMPOWERING and INTENTIONAL (whether on a conscious or unconscious level). it is not meant to be chaotic or something that’s out of your control. 🫶

please never hesitate to seek professional medical/mental health support if you think you need it. receiving professional mental health support is not a setback, it is a critical step in grounding yourself and distinguishing between spiritual paranoia + spiritual awakening. 🤍

you deserve to feel enlightened and in control on your spiritual journey, not chaotic and panicking. <3

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

♡ REMEMBER: you are not just a physical body moving through life. you are not bound by the 3D realm. you are a limitless soul CHOOSING experiences. you TRANSCEND the physical because you exist in the spiritual!

✨₊˚⊹♡ i’ll be making more posts regarding:

the idea of your soul/consciousness being the “real you”

scientific correlates to these spiritual beliefs

the relationship between science, 3D, spirituality and 4D

other related topics that further expand on the concepts discussed in this post

so stay tuned for that! 🫶 as a science girly, you already know that i LOVEEE exploring the undeniable connections between science and spirituality, so of COURSE i have to share my recent epiphanies and observations with you! the more i learn about science, the more my spirituality makes SENSE. 🥹

sending so much love and light! <3

[thicctails]

I need more info on the get better children au, especially about when Bill shows up.

*rubs hands together* I finally got some extra time to draw up some new art for this AU, so let's give it some substance >:3 Long post below the read more with extra art :D

Before Euclydia was destroyed, Euclid and Scalene Cipher were some of its most powerful members. Bill saying that everyone loved him as a baby was true for a time; children aren't born very often, and the Ciphers are considered to almost be royalty. It wasn't until Bill's mutation became apparent that people began to shun him. If he had been born to any other family, he likely would have been abandoned.

Though neither Euclid nor Scalene could really comprehend the concept of something being "up", let alone what "stars" could possibly be, both of them used their status to try and find any scrap of forbidden information, hoping that they could find an answer, could find some confirmation that their son wasn't crazy, and didn't need to be blinded by his "medicine."

It was this research that eventually saved their lives. Having the knowledge that it was possible for things to, hypothetically, exist in a three dimensional plane allowed them to pool their powers and create 3D forms for themselves when Euclydia began to burn, pulling themselves off the 2D plane like a sticker being peeled off a page. It wasn't a smooth transition in the slightest, and the flames managed to damage parts of their bodies before they managed to fully free themselves. The rest of their power went into escaping their collapsing reality, and when all was said and done, they were left near catatonic and floating in the space between time and space for many, many years.

They don't really start to recover until a certain frilly guy upstairs nudges them into a new, stable dimension. This one is almost entirely 3D, and inhabited by creatures that look completely alien to the Euclydians. Creatures called humans.

They meet Dipper and Mabel not long after, and the two triangles attach themselves to the babies, doing their best to care for them in their weakened states when their young, unprepared parents fail to be adequate caretakers. Being 2D is far easier for them, so they stick to the walls like shadows and find ways to speak to the twins, slipping into videos and pictures, music and books, their forms changing slightly to match whatever media they slipped into. They teach Dipper and Mabel their colours, shapes, ABC's, ect, comfort them when they get sad or scared, and once they're old enough, how to do basic things like getting themselves food and water when they get left alone too long.

Neither Pines parent really notices their children making grabby hands and babbling at open air at first, though they do become a bit concerned when years pass and they still stare at walls and empty corners like there's something there.

Eventually, as we all know, the Pines twins get shipped off to a sleepy town in Oregon, and Euclid and Scalene are, of course, coming along to watch over their little stars. However, they become deeply uncomfortable when they start to see visages of their son carved into every room of the twin's temporary home.

It doesn't take long for the show's antics to start, but Grunkle Stan gets involved in the twins adventures far earlier because during The Inconveniecing, Euclid uses his ability to manipulate televisions to play one of those old PSA's on loop until he gets spooked enough to actually check on the twins, only to find them missing.

Eventually, through the help of Scalene using a radio to drag up an old advert for the Dusk 2 Dawn, he figures out where they are and arrives just in time to see the tail end of their ghostly encounter. Unable to deny his knowledge of Gravity Falls' weirdness, he and the twins have their Season 1 finale talk that night, and Dipper shows Stan Journal 3, which leads to all three of them searching for Journal 2 (Stan doesn't reveal the portal yet)

Bill gets summoned by Gideon like in Canon, but things veer wildly off course when, upon entering Stan's mind, Mabel asks him if he knows Euclid or Scalene. He freezes up upon hearing the names of his parents, and he immediately calls off the deal with Gideon, ripping himself out of Stan's Dreamscape. Before he can process what happened, he comes face to face with someone he's only seen in daymares for the past trillion years

Bill dips the fuck out once he realizes he's not hallucinating, disappearing to Axolotl knows where to do fun, productive things such as: scream, cry, break shit, sob on the floor, drink until the teeth in his eye ache, stare at the space between stars for days on end, and interrogate every single one of his henchmaniacs to see if they spiked his drink.

Mans has absolutely zero clue on how to navigate this situation, eventually settling on stalking the Pines because he genuinely cannot think of any possible way to approach his (apparently alive????) parents. How do you go about atoning for the extinction of your entire species?

Bill Cipher has never been one to do things for others for any other reason than to get something back, but he figures the best place to start is by protecting these fleshy human young that his parents seem so attached to.

Wait, would that make them siblings? Axolotl, he sure hopes not.

[windvexer]

Asking for perfect outcomes in witchcraft

Bit of theory; take it or leave it, etc.

One fun thing about witchcraft is that spells often manifest literally. When your objective does not match your programmed intent, spells tend to follow intent.

I tend to view intent as being like an ethereal wireframe that power fills in to make it solid and real.

Whatever the shape of your intent is, that defines the limits of the spell.

However much power you can conjure determines how solidly the intent can manifest.

That means if you ask for limited, restrained outcomes, that will tend to be the kinds of outcomes you will get, no matter how powerfully you work the spell.

Casting a spell with an intentional ceiling built-in that limits its effects will actually limit its effects. There is no reason to assume that if you cast a spell extra strongly or extra well, that your intent will be unwound and replaced by a different intent you never specified.

Not to psychoanalyze a hypothetical audience, but I suspect that some witches choose limited intents because they think it's all they can accomplish, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I do think a lot of witches who are down about their own abilities are truly working with power, supercharging their own spells - but those spells have intents like "get him to bother me less," instead of "sever his attention from me now, from before the beginning of time to beyond the end of time, in every time that existed, in this dimension and in every dimension, and cauterize his severed attention so it may never regrow, that in this life or any life until the end of time, neither he nor any version of him may observe me, think about me, or interact with me or any version of me that has, does, will, or could exist."

I get on these kicks, and my current one is, if it's a milquetoast intent ("get him to bother me less") you may as well be putting like 20% or 30% effort into it and not exhausting yourself at all. Honest question for witches who are constantly exhausted from doing magic: have you tried putting in way less effort? You may be surprised at what little power it takes to accomplish simple things.

But if you're set on going all-out, giving 110% every time, and being almost nonfunctional for a week after every spell you cast, you might as well go for grand cosmic intents that seek to rend the fates beyond the gods themselves. How do you know you can't, if you've never tried?

[raviollies]

Hag world building rambling that applies to my canon

Hags, also commonly known as simply 'Witches', are a female only subspecies of Fae, reproducing purely through one Hag siring another, through a contract with a Hag-daughter or Hexblood, neither of which are considered full blooded, and are more akin to a larvae stage. The contract/ritual itself has to be consensual and commonly done to initiate a coven.

After hundreds of years many become extremely powerful beings, with the saving grace that like Fae, they are extremely capricious beings bound by their own desires, and prefer to live every day as though it is their last, rather than forming long term ambitious plans. Powerful Undead or Devils typically refer to them as flighty and only a threat if you encroach on their specific sandbox. They tend to find little interest in politics or grand schemes vying for power, though exceptions always happen.

TRUE FORMS

Their "true" forms, are of the Hags own making, shaping their body however they please as most other Fae. While some Hags stick to traditional "Old Crone" archetypes, some prefer more abstract or even bestial aspects. It's common for Hags to start out with more humanoid forms and as time progresses and their humanity erodes, to evolve into more monstrous forms.

Night Hag - Wunsch || Green Hag - Theta || Green Hag - Glorifreria

Similar to adopting a new form, Hags adopt a new name, keeping their true name hidden as per Fae tradition. Older Hags have a tendency to forget their past lives and their true names - whether it be from the passage of time or resentment for their "weaker" self. Their names are usually words or symbols rather than actual names.

DOMAIN

Hag domains are personal pocket planes that are specific to each individual hags but some that are especially close are known to share. Hags are at their maximum power within their plane and prolonged departure results in weakening of the power and mind.

Usually a Hag has a niche that she excels in, and her domain tied to it. Theta's is a lush forest with a thriving ecosystem of life and death, through animal carcasses overtaken by fungi and flora, mimicking her true form of an overgrown skeleton, and Wunsch is a luxurious manor where she was sealed, bustling with life usually taking on form of those treasured but departed.

Glorifreria is a banquet hall with a never ending meal, servants constantly bustling to give more and more. When meeting for a contract, the one asking sits with her for dinner, offering her a meal.

Despite her power Theta was unable to fully enter Wunsch's domain outside of a powerless familiar.

IDENTITY

Hags gain their power from consuming of other's life force, be it physical or spiritual.

Wunsch, a Night Hag that was sealed within a clock tower - has forgotten all about her previous life, but due to being sealed away for several hundred years and not having access to her domain has eroded to the point where she does not remember her goals or purpose as a Hag, and even her nature outside of granting a mortals wishes through the use of her pocket dimension. She is unable to properly sustain her domain anymore, and thus subconsciously seeks out hosts to act as an anchor, while fulfilling their dreams and desires within. After the host is spent, she is forced to wait for another once more, and falls into hibernation. She consumes spiritually.

Glorifreria is Green Hag, also known as the "Gluttonous witch" and her specialty is "consuming" the undesirable, and gains power from the significance of what she's consumed. As an example : children that parents want to be rid of would be consumed and their very existence is erased, no one recalls there ever being a child, pregnancy or birth. A marriage contract, and no one recalls any marriage or even a relationship. Other things could be wills, business contracts. If one was to wish to erase a parent, then their existence is erased and the perception changes to no one recalling who their lineage is. Having spent thousands of years doing this, she has grown incredibly bored with her existence seeing no point in it and having lost her purpose - she has retired contracts in favour of sampling more pleasant things, namely mortal food.

Theta, is another Green Hag, has no such issue due to her frequent trips to and fro from her domain. She receives her power from physical consumption. Targeting simple village women seeking revenge or retribution, she only asks for a small body part in return. The very act of consuming another, a thousand times, time and time again has made her a formidable witch.

Though due to being over a thousand years now, like Glorifreria, she has forgotten her true name and identity prior to becoming a Hag, having fully discarded it when she slayed the one that made her, and consumed her. Theta unlike Wunsch, is fully aware of her nature as a Hag and revels in it - believing herself to be above others for this reason. Due to her power and arrogance, she is without coven, but seeks to remedy that however is quite selective with who she wishes to join her. She sees great potential in Blythe and wishes for her to embrace her animalistic, instinctual side and embrace herself for the beast she knows she can be, and join the coven.

DISGUISE APPEREANCE

Hags and Hexbloods are known for their unique appearance in eyes and ears. Forked ears unnatural in shape but more entrancing are their eyes, not one being alike - myriads of colours, unique pupil shapes or even oddly coloured sclera. Theta's are an everchanging kaleidoscope of colours, with a bright white pupil, that either resembles a flower or ripples. Wunsch's iris was a night sky without a visible pupil. Glorifreria has red with a halo of golden with red pupil (similar to a Bearded Vulture!) Were Blythe to become a Hag hers would be iridescent akin to a moonstone with a black sclera.

HONORIFICS AND TITLES:

Prefacing that I am not a big fan of the whole Aunt/Grandmother thing in DnD so this is different:

Hags have a strict hierarchy and tend to throw their weight around to establish dominance as they tend to be very possessive and territorial. It is considered rude to refer to a fellow Hag by just her name, thus usually a moniker is established i.e. Theta, Lady of the Woods, or Wunsch, the Dream Witch.

A lesser hag addressing a more powerful one would refer to her as "Mother", and the greater one addressing the lesser is "Daughter". Hags of established equal standing would refer to each other as "Sister".

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: What Did You Do? Ch. 1

Summary: “Nine Lives Lee”, a rare Stanley Pines who ended up on the other side of the portal instead of his brother, literally falls into the “Better World” that one dimension that most of the alternate versions of Stanford Pines tend to be jealous of and hold over Lee’s head as ‘proof’ that everyone would have been better off if he’d just done what his brother asked him. The Ford of this dimension, however, isn’t quite what he seems. And neither is his version of Stanley.

Rating: T+

Warnings:  Language, violence, medical related gore, and mentions of graphic violence. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here.

Disclaimer: Reverse Portal Stan "Nine Lives Lee" is owned by @urdadsceilingfan

This version of the Better World AU is owned by @mother-ofthe-universedraws

Next

Ch.1

This isn’t the first time Lee’s stood at the ledge on the roof of a tall building, looking down, and contemplating his life and what it’s worth. How he got here. What he’s done so far. What his next move is. 

“Halt! You’re at the end of the line, old man.”

This isn’t the first time he’s been cornered by cops of a different dimension, either. He never bothered to learn what this particular organization liked to call themselves. Eventually, all of the acronyms and titles ran together, and it’d still be some echelon of police at the end of the day. After all, if it sounds like a pig, walks like a pig, and rolls around in shit like a pig, it’s a pig. Especially since some of the cops in this world were literal humanoid pigs; this version of Earth was half populated by regular humans, and the other half populated by anthropomorphic animals. 

At least they spoke his first language, English. He’s gotten better at learning languages over the years, having a sharper echoic memory than anyone would assume just by looking at him, but it was still annoying when he would go long stretches not able to understand anything because he didn’t know the local language. He really should get a universal translator one of these days. 

“Hands where we can see them!” He heard a multitude and clicks and the distinctive bzzt of electricity. Lee knew they were pulling out weapons on him, most likely handguns, tasers, and good ol’ fashioned nightsticks. He was pretty familiar with all of those, having been at the sending and receiving ends of them all. This version of Earth wasn’t advanced enough for energy based weaponry.

Lee slipped his portal gun into his jacket quickly and quietly, turning around as he did so. He slowly put his hands up in front of himself, in a defensive, if somewhat relaxed, guard.

“Up in the air, dirtbag!” The cop barked at him - quite literally, this particular officer is some humanoid dog. He noticed some of them had their eyes drawn to his right arm; his robotic one. He couldn’t blame them for being distracted, considering the tech here couldn’t have been advanced enough for a prosthetic like his.

Slowly Lee started to raise his hands.

And then he flipped them around with his middle fingers up, and did a free-fall backwards off of the ledge.

This isn’t the first time Lee’s known the view from halfway down.

But they didn’t call him Nine Lives Lee for nothing; because this also isn’t the first time Lee had opened a portal without the cops noticing until he’d already jumped.

“GET BACK HERE LEE!” One of the cops shouted at him as soon as they were able to sprint over to the ledge and look down at him, expecting a suicide attempt, only to be baffled by a swirling electric-blue vortex floating there, right in the path of Lee’s descent.

“See ya later sucker!” He called back, still keeping both middle fingers up even as bullets whizzed right past him but failed to quite make the mark. One lucky shot got him in in his robotic arm, but like most parallel Earth bullets, it just clinked right off.

The portal swallowed him up, and collapsed in on itself, winking right out of existence from Dimension-BoJ6

---

Lee had complicated feelings for Rick Sanchez. They were friends, rivals,  begrudging allies, enemies, lovers - sometimes all of those things at once. It’s a long story, a few decades of a long story in fact. But he never underestimated Rick’s brilliance. At one point in his travels, Rick had approached him; he needed some parts from a heavily guarded facility, and told Lee if he could get them without dying he would build him his own portal gun. Rift-Hunting was long and exhausting and he could go months to years stuck in a dimension before finding one, so of course Lee took the job. He’d had his trusty portal gun ever since.

However, for all of Rick’s undeniable genius, for the life of him Lee could not figure out why that dumbass never made portals that you could clearly see through. The guy had an entire civilization of alternate versions of himself, there was no way they couldn’t have cobbled their big brains and even bigger egos together and figured it out. Lee was still convinced they were just that dedicated to their sci-fi aesthetic.

Most of the time, both sides of the portal created by the gun were oriented the same - if you generated a portal two feet off of the ground and vertically upright, it’d be the same when you went through it. If you made a portal into the ground, usually you would fall through a floor and/or ceiling. This wasn’t always the case, however.

By making a portal horizontal, and mid-air up forty floors, Lee had expected to continue to free fall; he would still have plenty of time between falling through the portal and hitting the ground to get himself properly oriented and get his emergency landing gear in time.

This time, the ground was less than five feet below him.

“Ough!” Lee grunted, the wind knocked out of him as he landed on his back onto a concrete floor, he also felt a sharp burst of pain in the back of his head when that also smacked against the dusty concrete, the blow slightly softened by his beanie. “...Ouch.”

Sweet Moses, he knew he was up there in years but did he really need to get humbled by a lower back pain flare? The impact has caused the muscles there to start spasming, and he knew it’d take hours to stop on its own if he didn’t do something about it.

Lee grimaced as he sat up, and took in his darkened surroundings as he reached down to his utility belt, feeling around for the right compartment. Appeared to be some kind of basement, with abandoned shelves, desks, and tables. It was dusty down here, but not a thick blanket, so it was not abandoned, just seldom visited. It looked like the room was slightly in ruins, because there were loose pieces of the concrete wall and floor scattered around. There was a peculiar structure behind him, where his portal had spat him out; some inverted triangle with a hole in the center-.

Lee's entire body froze for a split second; it wasn’t like him to let himself get caught off guard, but he knew exactly what he was looking at. After all, it was the very same structure he’d been sucked into almost thirty years ago, jettisoning him from his original dimension, and his twin brother who he’d just been fighting with-.

All of these years later and the sizzle from the structure he’d kicked Ford into, and the horrific, pained scream from his brother that followed still haunted him when he thought about it.

Rising slowly due to his flaring pain, Lee’s flesh hand pulled a syringe from his medical pouch, and his prosthetic hand brought his portal gun close to his face so he could read the console home screen for the information it’d gathered as soon as he fell into this dimension:

[€ΔŘŦĦ ¥€ΔŘ: 2010

₣Ř€Ω ΜΔŦĆĦ: Ň€ǤΔŦƗV€

Đ€ŞƗǤŇΔŦƗØŇ: Ǥβ-1100

₣Ř€€ ŴƗ₣Ɨ? ŇØ]

Damn. The negative frequency match told him what didn’t surprise him, but still disappointed him; this wasn’t his dimension. Well, you could only get so lucky when you set the destination to ‘random’ and ‘habitable atmosphere’. Although, hasn’t he heard of Dimension BG-1100 before? He had an inkling he’d at least heard that designation before.

Lee rose fully to his feet, grimacing as the sharp pain shooting up from his lower back, he uncapped his syringe and, clenched in fist, he brought it under his coat and shifted his belt line low enough to expose the skin underneath, and using that same fist as a landmark to measure below his hip. He didn’t bother to count down this time, he just gave himself the injection.

“⋔⍜⏁⊑⟒⍀⎎⎍☊☍⟒⍀!” Lee hissed harshly under his breath; he even didn’t remember exactly what that language was called, because he’d learned it five or so dimensions ago, but he was very familiar with that specific phrase because of how frequently he’d used it when he was frustrated, angry, in pain, or really didn’t like the person he was talking to. As soon as the syringe was completely out of the cocktail of ketorolac and cyclobenzaprine, the needle automatically retracted, and he sighed in relief as his pain started to dissipate. He put the spent syringe into a different pouch; he used to not be opposed to just tossing these where he was, until some people started using those to get his DNA to track him.

Speaking of tracking-

There was a glowing red dot in the corner of the massive room. Lee halted all movement, and strained to see what the source was, which wasn’t easy given the room being dark. Whether it was a camera, a drone, or some other kind of sci-fi security device, he knew when something was recording him. 

The sci-fi adventuring badass in him wanted to destroy it with his blaster, quick and easy. But Lee wouldn’t have gotten this far if he wasn’t practical; his blaster had limited charges, and he didn’t need to run out mid-fight just because he’d decided to be extra. There wasn’t just one type of quick and easy, after all.

He did a precursory scan of his surroundings and- aha! He knelt over and picked up a loose chunk of concrete- good thing this place didn’t seem to ever get cleaned or fixed up. Straining slightly, he held the chunk in his robotic hand, focused on the red dot in the corner, and chucked the piece of concrete at it as hard as his prosthetic arm would let him - which was a lot harder than his flesh arm could manage.

The red dot went out as the chunk made contact, and the piece of technology that emitted it in the corner fell to the ground in pieces. Quick and easy, and he didn’t have to use any of his stuff. Still, he’d already been recorded, he needed to make himself scarce before trouble came looking for him.

He slid his gaze to the side and up when he heard the distinct sound of locks and chains being messed with. 

Great.

He looked around for something to crouch behind.

From upstairs, he could hear the rusty squeak from a door opening, and sliding across the floor, followed by semi-sharp footsteps descending down the stairs, picking up in sound enough Lee could assess what he was hearing.

‘Dress shoes’ He deduced - not boots or sneakers, so whoever this was at a disadvantage for running and fighting. So fight and flight were both still on the table. Good, he liked having options.

The distinct shape of a human took the last step from the stairs into the basement, and for a moment just stood there. Lee could see that their gaze was fixed onto the inverted triangle of the portal.

Tall. Thin- a variant of McGucket, perhaps? If this was his brothers basement on another parallel Earth, Fiddleford McGucket was a constant in his life. Most of the time he was batshit crazy, but in some dimensions he’d retained his sanity. 

But every time he was a genius, and every time he had some gadget on him with the word ‘Death’ in it and there were only so many chances Lee was willing to take.

The figures back was turned to him as they walked forward and felt around the walls, likely looking for a lightswitch. They had still, jerky movements; joint pain. Yeah, if this was McGucket he’d be getting up there in years just like him.

Lee slid along the opposite side of the room, slinking around the shadows and willing his steps to be as silent as possible.

He’d made it all the way to the base of the stairs when he’d misjudged a turn and his prosthetic arm smacked clanked against the metal banister of the stairs. He inwardly cursed; on if the things they don’t tell you about prosthetics is that is can sometimes mess up your spacial awareness, something you’d really need in the dark

“Who’s there?” The figure asked and Lee didn’t have time to take in the details of their voice because he saw them point something long and cylindrical at him-

Like a shotgun.

In an instant he’d run over and tackled the figure, and they both tumbled to the floor, knocking the rifle out of the figure's hand, while the other hand flipped on the switch on the wall during the initial tackle.

The lights in the basement flicked in slowly, but that was enough time for Lee to straddle the figure and reach for his-

“St-.... Stanley?” The voice below him quivered, like a choked up whisper of surprise and awe, making Lee freeze up right before his hand could grasp his knife. 

That was a name he never used anymore.

And that was a voice he’d heard before, it was rusty and heavy but-

Lee dares to look up from his side - and he saw that the object he’d knocked out of the mans hand was not a rifle but a cane - and to the face of the man he’d knocked down. A prominent nose and cleft chin, gray hair streaked in silver, and, most importantly, it was almost exactly the same as his own face.

He’d met many variants of this man throughout the multiverse, and it was never a warm reception; there was always hostility and resentment from the other end. But this man looked at him like he was seeing something that amazed but terrified him.

“Ford?”

To be continued…

---

NOTES

-“View From Halfway Down” is a reference to Bojack Horseman. And yes, the world Lee was in initially was the Bojack Horseman universe. The name of the dimension, BoJ6 comes from “BoJack”, and 6 from the number of seasons.

-The scene where Lee escapes is a direct reference to this art of him

-The Portal Guns text is from the Delta font from https://pixelied.com/font-generator/discord if you have trouble reading it, here’s what it said:

[Earth Year: 2010

FREQ MATCH: NEGATIVE

Designation: GB1100

Free WiFi? No]

-Dimension-GB1100 is the designation for the “Better World” AU because in Caesar Cipher with shift 5, GB = BW or "Better World". "1100" is for "IIOO" or the initials in "International Institute of Oddology".

-The language used by Lee in the beginning is from Alien Speech Translator

-Ketorolac is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to reduce inflammation and pain and often used for acute back pain, and Cyclobenzaprine is a muscle relaxer that can treat pain and muscle spasms. Stan probably carries like a dozen vials of a personalized mix that he acquires through stealing various means.

-I thought it’d be interesting if compared to Stanford’s photographic memory (having a highly detailed memory of things you see), Lee had echoic memory (highly detailed memory of things you hear), which is what helped him learn to pick up languages easily, and take in his surroundings when his vision was impaired (and considering he went through the portal without glasses, he needed that skill). It’s also ironic, considering that canon Stan uses a hearing aid.

[simpingforblackfire]

In the middle of writing a fanfic with a reader who’s an absolute fuckgirl in Miguel’s dimension but in an alternate one you were Miguel’s wife, who loved him so earnestly that it had Miguel anguished from his envy for what his alternate self had that he didn’t. 

Miguel had peered into a world that wasn’t his own but he yearned so badly for it to be. One where you’re his wife. One where you look at the alternate version of himself with a warmth no fire could ever hope to bring him. 

Miguel had watched his counterpart with a desperate jealousy.

How did this version of him get so lucky as to have both a woman who loved him and a daughter who adored him. What had this version of him done to take and take and take and keep everything Miguel had ever wanted but couldn’t have all to himself.

Then he was confronted by his own reality when you became a new employee at his work.

The way you looked at him was dangerous, a shameless want blatant in your eyes and he felt his breath hitch whenever you locked eyes because maybe he could get everything that he’d wanted.

You wanted him. You, who was burned into his soul. The looks you were giving him left him shivering not from lust but from hope.

He should talk to you. Confess to you that he wanted you to stay. That he wanted you to give him more than you could ever offer him. But then he reminded himself that these things took time to cultivate and while you lusted for him you didn’t yet love him, but you would. He just needed to be patient and wait.

He tried to take things slow. He really did. But then you’d look at him with those pretty eyes of yours and ask him sweetly to fuck you, like what you had asked him for wasn’t  the vulgar act it was. 

But something warmed in his chest at the thought of being wanted. At the thought of you wanting him. At the thought that perhaps he could be loved. That he could have everything he’d ached for.

He hadn’t known you’d exist in this reality. But then he’d never thought someone was out there who was made for him. Because the version he was of himself was never good at being loved.

You had your eyes on the quiet man at work from the moment you met him. You were stressed and so fucking horny and that man was built so beautifully it would be a bigger sin not to indulge. It was convenience at its finest, literally with how pretty that man was and who were you to deny a man who clearly wanted you when he looked like that?

You wanted to fuck that man until neither of you cared about what you had going on.

He always seemed just that extra bit nervous whenever you were around. He was seemingly less confident when you were wearing clothes then when you weren’t. No issue there. You loved a man who could take control in the best ways.

You supposed it was that you were his colleague that flustered him. Workplace crushes were never usually all that but they didn’t have to be if you didn’t make them and you certainly weren’t short of attention to satisfy yourself if he ever felt like it was all too scandalous. You wouldn’t hold it against him; fucking colleagues was usually a terrible decision even if the sex was really great.

But Miguel was a whole new type of temptation and you wanted nothing more than to strip him down and fuck his worries and his stress away until you were both exhausted and trembling and entirely unable to think of anything at all with how overwhelmed your senses both were.

He was so uptight and rigid you weren’t sure he’d give into your efforts at first. But you’d seen the way his eyes darted to you and back away a little too quickly and how his eyes always seemed to burn into you when he thought you weren’t looking.

But eventually he cracked from your pressure. And that one flicker of vulnerability was all you needed to drag him into your corruption. 

And once it started it became all too easy for it to quickly happen again and again and again.

Miguel looked at you like you were some sort of marvel and you were so happy to indulge his cravings. Because you were one piece of art that he could touch and you loved the way he looked at you.

It was an easy, nameless arrangement. A fun way to make work more interesting and distress the both of you. It was great and you’d never been so excited to go to work; knowing you’d have him all to yourself to tease.

The only problem was that Miguel did not see this arrangement like you did.

He yearned for your touch. He was endlessly grateful for every inch of pleasure you gave him. Only afterwards you always stripped him of the one thing he wanted more than anything, which was yourself.

You’d come back later. But you’d never stay long. Always moving on and away from him.

The only time he got to hold you was during sex where he wrapped his arms around your writhing form as you moaned and cried underneath him while he fucked into you.

After when you had cum on his cock and you were both so unbelievably spent Miguel got maybe a minute to hold you as you panted underneath him; struggling to catch your own breath. All too soon you’d press a hand against his sweat covered chest and gently push him back. That gentle touch may as well have been a scalding burn with how it filled his heart with a haunting ache.

You loved being fucked hard and fast. It was quick and easy and satisfying to you. Miguel knew that and he would happily give that to you even if it wasn’t his preference if you only stayed in his arms afterwards.

But you didn’t. 

So, Miguel took his time with you because as long as you hadn’t yet cum you weren’t going anywhere. Because you only ever left once you had what you came for.

He’d take his time with you every single time you were in his bed or he yours; kissing your lips, your neck, your breasts. He slowly kissed and licked and sucked and grazed his teeth over every inch of your skin you’d allow him to. 

He loved to spread your thighs and just stare at your cunt for a moment; letting out breaths against it that had you squirming and mewling and begging for his touch. 

Then he’d edge you far past your breaking point. He’d put his mouth on your clit, tongue swirling and his mouth sucking on your clit; pulling away right before you could come on his face. He’d deny himself the full taste of you if it meant you spent longer in his bed. Because you always left once you had what you came for.

He’d fuck you on his fingers, before he fucked you on his cock. Pumping them in and out of your hole and curling them to make you cry out before pulling them out of you. He’d watch your hole clench and unclench and in his want he’d lean down and kiss it, which had you gasping out in shock every single time he did it.

You weren’t to be allowed to cum for a long time. Not until you were whining and desperate beyond rationality. He was sure you’d give him anything when he took you there, that you’d promise him anything he asked of you as long as you finally got some release. 

But that didn’t mean you meant anything you said.

He’d cover your body in his hickeys; aiming to make sure you had at least one you couldn’t hide, so he could admire them all day; knowing he was the one to give it to you.

When he had you so spent that you passed out in his arms and in his bed he’d pull you in tighter; hooking a leg over you and let himself relax and smile quietly; knowing he’d sleep better than he usually did.

But he knew all too well that you would leave him eventually. That you’d inevitably unwind your body from his and slink out of his apartment in your ruffled clothes no matter how creased and worn they were from his efforts. That you’d never ask him for his clothes because as long as you could still wear yours you’d walk out in any state, because he wasn’t worth even your dignity to stay.

You’d always leave and he’d always feel that much colder, unable to stop himself from hoping that you’d one day stay in his arms past morning.

He’d deluded himself into believing you loved him. But that hunger in your eyes had never been from love and he wondered if it had ever really been so hungry as he’d believed. 

He wanted to believe that the desire in your eyes would melt into a yearning for something more, but it never did. Because lust wasn’t love. He could make you scream his name out all he wanted and you’d still be willing to call someone else’s on another night. He could bruise your hips with how hard he held them and you’d slip away all the same.

You weren’t his.

You never had been.

Not this version of you. Because this version of him had never been enough for anything. 

You praised his body. Kissed and licked and marked it as he’d ask you to. But you’d never give him anything that wouldn’t fade. 

Miguel could grip onto you all he wanted but that didn’t make you his, because all he was had been something to use. 

He wasn’t content to be only that. Your touch ached him as much as your absence did, but at least when you were in his bed and on his cock you were there. 

If he held you any closer he feared you’d realise just how desperate his grip was and that you’d end this torment that he couldn’t help but always go back to.

The thought of the possibility of being loved left him shamefully hopeful and he couldn’t lose the one person he knew could love him, even if it had taken being a different version of the both of you for you to have done it.

It didn’t matter how good-looking he was, how handsome you’d tell him he was. Because his body has never been the problem, no matter how he’d run it ragged and hunch himself over in his shame. 

It was the cruel thought that maybe, just maybe, you would  one day grow to love him. It was that hope that kept coaxing him back to you without you even needing to say anything to him at all to reel him back in.

Because at the end of the day to you if it wasn’t him it would just be someone else and it wouldn’t matter at all to you.

But perhaps one day you’d love him, he thought.

It wasn’t enough.

He was trying so hard to make it enough.

A/N: Please reblog.

If you'd rather read this on my ao3

[heartburriedinvenice]

the end is undeniably near (and i keep running towards it) - steve h.

(steve harrington x hopper!reader)

a part of my phoebe challenge 🎞🪐💌🕯

based on the song "i know the end" by phoebe bridgers

in which you always wanted to escape hawkins, indiana, until you didn't anymore.

or

in which the billboard said "the end is near"

content warning post season 3 (SO SPOILERS), mild cursing (maybe), ANGST like the whole time, unhealthy coping, and hawkins being hawkins, reader is an implied theater kid (im sorry not sorry)

a / n i disappeared on y’all, I’m sorry!! you know life is getting weird when i randomly return to tumblr.  just dipping my toes back in the water of all this so i apologize if i am a little rusty. this is just a piece of a hopper!reader show rewrite that has been in the works for a while so if anyone likes it enough, lmk, I’d be be happy to start posting the whole thing,starting from season 1! any feedback would be awesome (and also requests cause I need inspo back). okay enjoy some angst!

No one ever got out of Hawkins, Indiana. Like the town was somehow enclosed within some heavy-duty bubble, only a few people ever got the nerves to squeeze through. Until you did, until you did the one thing you believed was impossible. You packed your bags, loaded up your car, and left hell. And you did it without a goodbye because the only way to do the impossible was without one. And deep down you knew you were a coward, even after fighting monsters and otherworldly creatures, you were a coward. You could not face what was left behind or allow yourself to acknowledge it.

And it ate away at you in a way you could have never imagined. Too busy pretending like it never crossed your mind, like Hawkins never existed in the first place. Still, it chipped at you piece by piece until the guilt of escaping Hawkins, Indiana finally caught up with you. Until one day that guilt would sneak up and trip you, sending you tumbling all the way back down a hill to only land right back at the gates of Hawkins, at its green sign, Welcome to Hawkins! That warm welcome, the warmest welcome, with its murders and second dimensions and its people. Those people. Those people who worked their way so deep into your heart before you could even realize it. So deep that leaving felt like removing deeply grown roots from a garden, so impossible, so hard to tell where they even stopped growing.  You weren’t sure entirely when they grew so deep, you don’t really remember at all how they got there. When you let them? Why did you let them? After everything, you should have known better. You shouldn’t have let them.

You were fifteen when you knew you could never live in Hawkins, Indiana your whole life. It never felt real, artificial, fake. Mass-produced nuclear families and white picket fence houses and stale dead-end jobs. 

And then Steve Harrington needed an extra art credit and found his way as the lead in Hawkins High’s production of Romeo and Juliet. When rehearsing turned into giving Steve girl advice and driving with him to drop off flowers. When running lines became swinging a bat of nails and finding an alien in a fridge. When the day before the play performance had turned into icing Steve's bruises on your couch as you ran lines back and forth because neither of you could sleep. When a whole group of middle schoolers sat in the front row and your dad sat center with a bouquet of flowers. They were your family. Your strange and messy family all pretending to be interested in the gibberish mess of Shakespeare on stage. Them watching with stifled laughs as Steve stumbled through lines, as the balcony scene turned into him and you having a staring contest trying to figure out whose lines were next. And though your director would have your heads later, the two of you sat giggling during intermission and had to hold the laughter again when your director asked why you didn’t have time to be memorized to perfection. Because you had all the time in the world, didn’t you?. 

Unbelievable as it was, you began to question what you at fifteen had promised you would do. Because you had found more than stale every day Hawkins. You had found their odd-balls who taught you to play Dungeons and Dragons in their basement, who reminded you so much of your sister. And you had found Steve Harrington, a pretty boy with a heart of gold, who risked his life for his Juliet that night at the mall. Who held you tight when it all got too much.

When you moved back to Hawkins, Indiana, after Sara, after your parents split, you were sure life would never be the same again. You needed a fresh start, to completely reconfigure your life and pretend none of what had happened had happened. That you never had a sister, that your dad hadn’t completely changed, burrowing himself under alcohol and late shifts. That your mom wasn’t actively trying to forget and build another life over the one that had been left abandoned in that New York apartment. You were so sure you would have to move on, cut it all out the minute you graduated from high school. You were sure you had to escape on your rickety old bike right out of town.

Then things happened and somehow you found yourself again, found your father again as you sat together for your first Christmas dinner in years. Celebrating the return of the young Will Byers and the return of something else, something more, something familiar and warm. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but it was yours. You saw your father again for the first time in years that night, Christmas Eve, sitting on the porch as light snow fell and hit your heads, bundled in warm jackets, pretending the coffee you made was not mediocre at best. The police chief and his daughter, a messy duo. And that was perfect to you.

And then things happened again and again and again and finally everything just shattered.

And you left. You did what you had always hoped to do. But you didn’t feel the pride you had thought you would feel when you dreamed it at fifteen. You weren’t heading towards a new life, you were sitting in a stuffy apartment in the city. You were stuck again at what felt like the beginning. Unable to go with the Byers, you immediately made other plans, back at the apartment you had spent so many nights trying to forget. 

No one ever got out of Hawkins, Indiana. Like the town was somehow enclosed within some heavy-duty bubble, only a few people ever got the nerves to squeeze through. Until you did, until you did the one thing you believed was impossible. You packed your bags, loaded up your car, and left hell. And you did it without a goodbye because the only way to do the impossible was without one. And deep down you knew you were a coward, even after fighting monsters and otherworldly creatures, you were a coward. You could not face what was left behind or allow yourself to acknowledge it.

And it ate away at you in a way you could have never imagined or wanted to imagine. Too busy pretending like it never crossed your mind, like Hawkins never existed in the first place. Still, it chipped at you piece by piece until the guilt of escaping Hawkins, Indiana finally caught up with you. Until one day that guilt would sneak up and trip you, sending you tumbling all the way back down a hill to only land right back at the gates of Hawkins, at its green sign, Welcome to Hawkins! That warm welcome, the warmest welcome, with its murders and second dimensions and its people. Those people. Those people who worked their way so deep into your heart before you could even realize it. So deep that leaving felt like removing deeply grown roots from a garden, so impossible, so hard to tell where they even stopped growing.  You weren’t sure entirely when they grew so deep, you don’t really remember at all how they got there. When you let them? Why did you let them? After everything, you should have known better. You shouldn’t have let them.

You were fifteen when you knew you could never live in Hawkins, Indiana your whole life. It never felt real, artificial, fake. Mass-produced nuclear families and white picket fence houses and stale dead-end jobs. 

And then Steve Harrington needed an extra art credit and found his way as the lead in Hawkins High’s production of Romeo and Juliet. When rehearsing turned into giving Steve girl advice and driving with him to drop off flowers. When running lines became swinging a bat of nails and finding an alien in a fridge. Or jumping into a hole in the ground and lighting up never-ending tunnels of vines straight from those horror movies you used to watch with your sister. When the day before the play performance had turned into icing Steve's bruises on your couch as you ran lines back and forth because neither of you could sleep. When a whole group of middle schoolers sat in the front row and your dad sat center with a crumble bouquet of flowers. They were your family. Your strange and messy family all pretending to be interested in the gibberish mess of Shakespeare on stage. Them watching with stifled laughs as Steve stumbled through lines, as the balcony scene turned into him and you having a staring contest trying to figure out whose lines were next. And though your director would have your heads later, the two of you sat giggling during intermission and had to hold the laughter again when your director asked why you didn’t have time to be memorized to perfection. Because you had all the time in the world, didn’t you?. 

Unbelievable as it was, you began to question what you at fifteen had promised you would do. Because you had found more than stale every day Hawkins, you had found their odd-balls who taught you to play Dungeons and Dragons in their basement who reminded you so much of your sister. And you had found Steve Harrington, a pretty boy with a heart of gold, who risked his life for his Juliet that night at the mall, pulling you up when you twisted your ankle running up a flight of stairs and getting you out to paramedics when it was over. Icing your ankle and holding you when it all got too much. When you watched everyone exit the mall but the only real family you felt like you had left. When the police told you your fathers body couldn’t be found, buried under ash and grime in the mall fire. That he was the hero, that he saved your lives sacrificing himself. 

When you moved back to Hawkins, Indiana, after Sara, after your parents split, you were sure life would never be the same again. You needed a fresh start, to completely reconfigure your life and pretend none of what had happened had happened. That you never had a sister, that your dad hadn’t completely changed, burrowing himself under alcohol and late shifts. That your mom wasn’t actively trying to forget and build another life over the past one that had been left abandoned in that New York apartment, calling only for holidays and those important life events she was so sad she had to miss. You were so sure you would have to move on, cut it all out the minute you graduated from high school. You were sure you had to escape on your rickety old bike right out of town.

Then things happened and somehow you found yourself again, found your father again as you sat together for their first Christmas dinner in years. Celebrating the return of the young Will Byers and the return of something else, something more, something familiar and warm. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but it was steps in a direction. You saw your father again for the first time in years that night, Christmas Eve, sitting on the porch as light snow fell and hit your heads, bundled in warm jackets, pretending the coffee you made was not mediocre at best. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something for the two of you. The police chief and his daughter, a messy duo. And that was perfect to you.

And then things happened again and again and again and finally everything just shattered.

And you left. You did what you had always hoped to do. But you didn’t feel the pride you had thought you would feel when you dreamed it at fifteen. You weren’t heading towards a new life, you were sitting in a stuffy apartment in the city. You were stuck again at what felt like the beginning. Unable to go with the Byers, you immediately made other plans, back at the apartment you had spent so many nights trying to forget. 

Spring of 1986, the New York apartment was driving you insane. You felt like you might start running up the walls if you didn’t get out soon. At least that would be ten times more interesting than sitting and watching your Step-Dad watch golf—a sport you didn't understand. Seeing how bored you were, he tried to explain it, but you didn't process a single word he was saying.

You didn’t want to have something with him, you didn’t want a thing you bonded over and you especially didn’t want that thing to be golf.

You debated moving, you debated being drastic and dying your hair to make your mom upset but what good would that do other than feed the part in yourself that no longer cared, no longer wanted to care. Everything you cared about had slipped from your grasp, had disappeared, no matter how tightly you clutched it was gone.

Fuck.

You stared at the wallpaper, one you knew your mom had probably gushed over at the store and chosen. And you glanced at the patterned carpet, and the family picture you were not in. And even though they all reassured you that you were family, deep down you knew you had uprooted their whole routine. You especially saw it in your moms eyes when she looked at you a little too long, a constant reminder of what she had lost all those years ago.  

You listened to the busy city traffic below the apartment and the sound of wailing sirens you had completely become ignorant of after you lived in Hawkins so long. You glanced at the kitchen, the sink with no dishes and a fridge actually filled with food that wasn’t leftover take-out, mediocre pasta you had cooked, or boxes of Eggos. And you looked at the man beside you, silent, watching golf. It was all so different.

Every day it remained that way, your mom got home from work late, your stepfather came home before you got back from school, and then Liam, your step brother would come home.

He made it all a little more bearable. The littlest but only because he reminded you of home. He reminded you of Dungeons and Dragons in Mike Wheeler's basement, and your found sister, and the party that always had you on your toes. But even you could not warm up to the boy because he would never be them. And it was unfair. It was cruel of you to make comparisons between Hawkins and New York, to allow that to shut out the only family you now had. But it was one habit you could not seem to break no matter how hard you tried.

Hawkins, Indiana was quiet, it was small. Hawkins, Indiana was both a breath of fresh air and a tightening grip that had you gasping, clawing for a second to breathe. New York was loud, so loud that the sounds of sirens and blaring car horns became only white noise in your head. It was big, not big in the welcoming and warming way. Not big in the feeling of catching sight of a friend in a crowded room. It was big in the way you could not point out a single person at school that you had seen more than once.  It was big in a way similar to that of being alone in the middle of a large party. It was so big that being alone in a quiet, dark, empty room would feel the same as walking amidst the large crowds on the street.

And New York didn’t have Steve Harrington. New York didn’t have crazy kids and weird aliens, New York didn’t have Robin Buckley or Nancy Wheeler or Jonathan Byers, New York didn’t have comforting hugs from Joyce, and New York didn’t have your dad and it never would again. The thought of it was enough to make you sick, nausea filling every inch of your body, barely able to swallow down the fact. But you would swallow it down like you always did, like you did everything else.

Your mom would always tell you you could talk to her if you needed to, that no matter how long you were a part she still cared about you. But you still remember the look on her face when you had turned up at the apartment after all those years. Finally back together face to face, the only words she was able to muster was, “you grew up”. 

You kept busy filling the days with nothing. On a good day Liam would show you some project he did in class that day, him seemingly the most unbothered by your move-in. And your stepdad, Bill, would ask you how school was to which you would reply fine. It was fine, it would always be just fine.

And you would stare at the phone on the wall in the kitchen. Dialing and hanging up and dialing and hanging up, hearing him pick up and then slamming the phone down, falling back into the chair at the kitchen table. Sometimes he would call back, you knew he caught on, you would just listen as the phone rang, head in your hands. You couldn’t face it, it was all too much and answering that call, hearing that voice would only throw it all back at you at once. It would knock you down and hold you there as you tried to gain control of the emotions you had locked up so tight once again. You felt sick to your stomach once again and the feeling spread, it spread all throughout your body, all the way to your fingertips and toes. For the first time in your life, you begged your body to just throw up, hoping the feelings would go along with it, until the pit in your stomach was completely washed away. 

It was this sinking feeling every time you heard the phone ring and as much as you wanted to convince yourself otherwise, you weren’t sure if you would ever pick up. Maybe you would just forget about it all. But it was hard when your mind was plagued with images of creatures you could only describe as otherworldly and when every time you looked at yourself in the mirror before a shower your eyes would draw focus to the deep cut scars that littered your body. You would never truly escape Hawkins, Indiana, it was impossible, and it would follow you around until you finally gave up and went back. But you refused to allow it to have that control, until you picked up the phone…by accident.

It was late, a Saturday evening of all things. Your mother was working late that weekend, your step dad was asleep on the couch, and your step brother had abandoned his books on the table and gone to bed. And the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing, over and over in repeated increments. One call, two minutes passed, another call, three minutes had passed, and a third call with three minutes passing and on and on and on-

“Will you turn the damn thing off!” Yelled the man on the couch, whose deep sleeping was even disturbed by your past trying to creep back in. 

And it worried you, as you apologized and turned back to the phone, head aching from the noise. It worried you because every time before, the phone would ring one, maybe two times before the line went silent. But tonight, you had lost track of just how many times you had slammed the phone down to stop the ringing.

You looked up at the phone again, quiet for much too long, longer than before and RING. RING. RING.

The grunt of your step father filled the empty room and without a second thought, not wanting another lecture from your mom about not getting along with him, you reached for the phone line. Slowly placing it against your ear, you instantly pulled it back as a voice blasted through, louder than the ringing of the phone itself. “Goddammit! please pick up the phone-”

“Hey,” was all you said, it was faint and quiet in contrast, laced with guilt that had piled up from months of avoidance and pretending Hawkins didn’t exist. But it was loud enough to stop the yelling as murmurs and whispers filled the background of wherever your caller was calling from. 

Your Steve Harrington, your Romeo who deserved answers. After everything you had been through he deserved something from you that you had failed to deliver.

“Oh thank god, you don’t know how happy I am to hear your voice,” and what you expected to be anger was anything but, rather the clearest sound of overwhelming relief. Relief that all came crashing down the minute he spoke his next words. “You need to get back here, like... like-“

The sound of struggling came from their end of the phone and your heart rate sped up in a panic, only realizing how tightly you were holding the phone to your ear.

Dustin’s voice quickly came through the line, a complaining Steve evident in the back, “like right now, like ASAP, like as soon as possible.”

Dustin’s voice, his tone did nothing to loosen your grip on the phone, nothing to ease your panic and you almost slammed the phone down again. Back home, back in the familiar, back to memories of people that haunted your every thought. You wondered if they had called the Byers, your sister, you wondered if she was there too. 

“We can pay your bus ticket, but I can’t really explain like this and we just, we need your help,” Dustin practically cried. “We all need you. We can’t let anyone get hurt again.”

That was all you needed. Hawkins had a pull on you, a force you tried to ignore but eventually pulled you back anyways. Steve was back on the line soon after, you already scribbling a note to your mom, phone pressed against your ear by your shoulder. And when you heard his voice again your breath caught in your throat…it seemed to always do that with him.

“Steve, I-”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“No, but, Steve I really, just…I don’t know where to start,” you tried to explain, losing any of the words you had planned to say while lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling. 

“You don’t have to,” he simply said. But you knew you would, you had too many words to speak. “Just show up, just be here. We need you, even if you don’t believe me. It’s getting crazy again.”

Hawkins would never not be.

“I will be,” you reassured, really reassured. “I will be, I promise.”

And if everyone in Hawkins knew something, you never broke a promise, never. You got close sometimes, sometimes it seemed like you would, but you always met your end of the bargain. You said you would be back in Hawkins, Indiana and you would be. Setting the phone down back on it's holder with a quiet click, you jumped from your chair in the kitchen, as the wood chair quietly screeched against the floor. Open and close, open and close, the drawers in the kitchen were opening and closing until you found a tape role, cutting away a piece. Grabbing your note off the counter, you secured the piece to it and stuck it against the fridge where it would be noticed by your mom.

She would know what it meant, you knew she knew all along, that New York hadn’t been your home in a long time. That Hawkins had grown into something much deeper than you could have ever anticipated. And even then, in that kitchen, in that busy city…you knew, the end was near

[gatorbites-imagines]

Kinktober day 9

Roy Harper + sweat and Musk

Couldnt find a gif of roy, so heres a pic instead.

Still tired, I want a monster so bad, specifically the white one :/ How tf did this get so long, hello?

Reader is a speedster, cuz idk.

Kinktober 2023 masterlist

Roy Harper was hot, everyone on your team and outside of it knew that. From his cocky grin, to his long red hair tucked away into a red cap, and his stupidly thick muscular arms. You weren’t too bad to look at either, but where Roy’s bulk was in his arms, yours was in your legs. It came with the area of being a speedster, you all had some shapely legs that would catch eyes if you wore tight enough pants.

They used to call you White bolt, but like most heroes who had started out as sidekicks, you’d changed your name to Bizerk. It had started out as a title of sorts, given to you when you had ended up stuck in a different dimension, where the justice league called them the justice lords. Bizerk had started out as a name they called you, as you hadn’t existed in this dimension, leaving you as an unknown. It later became a name the public called you, but from them there had been love and hope.

You had been stuck in that dimension for a long time, having ended up there back when you had just turned 19, and you had only gotten back to your dimension in your mid-20s. It had been difficult to readjust to this dimension, where the justice league were still good and your friends were all alive and had missed you. You were still twitchy at times, and your moral compass was twisted, but that’s what made you fit with the outlaws so well.

Sadly, your relationship with your former teacher, Barry, was almost crumbled to dust as neither of you were who you were before, having both lost so much, seen so much, done things you didn’t want to do. Instead of being student and teacher, almost family like you once had been, you were now simply coworkers who might share a coffee after patrols, or you’d keep extra snacks around for fellow speedsters.

One thing that hadn’t changed too much though had been Roy. Sure, he was bigger now, buffer, he had almost left you unconscious with those arms of his when he had hugged you the first time, and again later when you two were alone and hed kissed you like he wanted to eat you alive. Before you had been scooped away to another dimension, you two had had a thing between you. There had never been a title on it, but you two always sought the other out and always found yourselves dry humping in an alleyway or sucking the other off between missions.

Apparently, he had spiralled into addiction, left the arrow name behind, had a kid, gotten out of addiction, then joined the outlaws, and so much more. There hadn’t really been much of a question on your part as you sided with the outlaws almost immediately, since that was where Roy, Kory, and later you found out Jason, the one robin you liked, was part of it too. So, now the outlaws had their own speedster who ran as fast if not faster than the rest of them, and didn’t have a problem spilling blood.

For a while, you and Roy didn’t talk about any of it, or the feelings you both still possessed years later. You weren’t young men who denied their sexuality like before, or who had the energy to pull a quickie just because you wanted too. You still could, of course, but neither of you seemed to find the same thrill as when you were younger. As you both toed around the inevitable, you resorted to less than stellar acts to satiate yourself.

You hadn’t gotten off well for years, as running around in a dimension as one of the few heroes against a regime didn’t leave much time. But now that you were home and safe, it was like your body was trying to catch up. You realized it might have started to become a problem when Roy had returned to your shared apartment, because you guys didn’t wanna be apart though neither said it in words, in a red tanktop and sweaty from the gym.

He had thrown his arms around your head as you had sat on the couch going through one of the many video games you had missed in your time away, and you had popped a stiffy almost immediately. Roy didn’t seem to notice how you tensed, as you always tensed from touch these days, but you felt drool pooling in your mouth as the scent of his sweat filled your senses.

Or maybe he had, as he started showing up more and more to your shared place, fresh from the gym or from a run, and he would always drape himself over you like some damsel in distress. It got so bad you almost started vibrating like only a speedster could, and you ended up resorting to nicking his musky laundry when he wasn’t home. Huffing that stupid red tank top of his, one you were sure he hadn’t washed for the past week even though hed worn in every day, you came hard enough that you didn’t stop buzzing around the edges for at least fifteen minutes.

You felt like a pervert as you snuck the tank top back into the laundry, trying hard to ignore how you were already hard and throbbing again. Being a speedster came with many positives, and depending on who you were, an almost non-existent refractory period was one of them. But for you, it was a curse, as no matter how many times you jerked off inhaling Roy’s potent laundry you still ached for more.

You felt like you were going crazy, as your inability to satisfy yourself left you agitated, and it spilled into your hero work. You hit enemies too hard, had much less patience, and couldn’t think straight, which had been your biggest strength in the other dimension. Even worse was the fact that Roy seemed to just love going around in that sleeveless getup of his, he had even started forgoing any layers under leaving his sweaty pits right in your face when hed pull you into his side after missions.

A less stable part of your brain told you just to kill him, because he was driving you up the wall like a half wild animal and you had no idea what to do. It ended with you trying to find different ways to work out your frustration, which ended up with you blasting music in your headphones as you pushed the leagues gym equipment to their limits.

None of your friends seemed to want to get close to you when you were in the mood you were in, maybe it was the murderous look on your face as you lifted weights or did an uncountable number of push-ups. You hadn’t even noticed Roy was there until you were packing up to go home, your entire body jittering and buzzing around the edges from exhaustion. Just as you were ready to hike home, Roy had hooked that deliciously stupid arm around your shoulder and declared you’d walk back together.

Maybe it was your frayed nerves, but he smelled even stronger today than usual, and the less stable part of your brain just wanted to shove him up against the wall and slobber all over his arms and pits like some kind of dog in heat. But you were stronger than that, that was until you guys stepped into your apartment and Roy shoved his face into your neck and inhaled loudly. You felt yourself give an almost painful throb at the groan he let out, your frazzled semblance of control slipping between your fingers like sand as he grunted how good you smelled.

What little restraint you both possessed seemed to finally snap, and soon your lips were mashed together, tongues rubbing and spit running down chins as clothes were pulled or even ripped off sweaty bodies. You had no idea whose bedroom you ended up in, you were too distracted by Roy grabbing your knees, pulling them open, and shoving his face into the crevice between your thighs and crotch.

The two of you moaned in unison, Roy from the powerful onslaught of musk that filled his senses, and you from the redhead’s wet tongue slobbering across the salty skin. His rough hands gripped the back of your knees, pushing them up further and further until your lower body was lifted off the bed, his tongue searching down until he could press it against your hole.

You groaned and panted, pulling at his hair was Roy ate you out with the gusto of a starving man finally given a meal. You could hear him huffing and smelling you as he did it too, seemingly just as lost in your musk as you were in his. Your orgasm slammed into you like a lightning bolt as he pulled your sack into his mouth, worshipping your balls and taking in the scent and taste of them. You didn’t even notice it approaching until you had white stripes across your sweaty torso.

You weren’t even soft for a whole thirty seconds before you were filling up again, especially as Roy’s tongue dragged up your body, licking up the streaks of white he had caused you to spill. Your lips met in another sloppy kiss, slick and wet noises filling the room as you hooked your arms around his head, wanting him closer than was humanly possible.

As you kissed Roy’s hand gripped your length, jerking it with a speed that had your hips jolting off the bed. So little was needed for you to cum again, spilling into his palm this time as he sucked on your tongue like it was a delectable treat. As he withdrew, he patted your muscular thigh with his clean hand, panting for you to roll over, which you did with no question asked.

His spit slick lips kissed up your back as he smeared your own essence against your spit slick hole, pushing two fingers in as he opened you up quicker than he might have any other day. You moaned, turning your head as you grabbed onto his head and twisted him enough that you could kiss him again. Two fingers soon became three, and your kiss became simply panting into the others mouth as you ground your hips back against his hand.

As he pulled his fingers out of your hole, you used your speed to grab him and flip him, throwing him onto his back so you could sit down on his aching almost purple length, the two of you both moaning though his sounded more cracked and broken than your own as he hadn’t cum even once. Roy was about to grip your hips, but you forced his arms above his head as you started to ride him.

Roy was about to ask what you were up too before you leaned down, letting the flat of your tongue run through his pits just like you had wanted to do for months. The redhead laughed and started moving his hips, thrusting up into you as he kissed at any skin of yours, he could reach, letting his tongue lick up any sweat he came across.

You ended up licking from his pits, up his neck, and into his mouth once more, Roy groaning in pleasure at the taste of his own salty sweat as your hips struck down on his own. Now that his hands were free, Roy quickly grabbed onto your hips and flipped you over, letting his thrusts turn rougher as you scratched and clawed at his back.

You were sure you had came multiple times as you two continued like a pair of rabbits, but your refractory period was so shot you didn’t even go soft. You knew Roy was about to finish as his thrusts slowed to a deep stomach-turning roll, his groans turning into higher moans as his jaw dropped. The flash of warmth inside you had you spilling against your chest again, clenching up around Roy in a way that had him jolting and grunting.

He flopped down on top of you, both of you even more sweaty and exhausted than before, and when he started lazily licking at your sweaty neck and you smacked at his shoulder. Roy chuckled softly as he leaned back, looking at you with the type of love you two had always felt. The kiss he gave you this time was full of love instead of lust, but soon the loving kisses wasn’t enough to ignore the disgusting messes you both were.

Roy almost looked as sad as you felt as you two had to go shower and put on new sheets on what you saw was Roy’s bed, but it had to be done as you didn’t want to sleep in that type of filth. In Roy’s words, you just had to get dirty again if that was an issue. As you were about to fall asleep, Roy kissed your shoulder and muttered that he loved you and wanted you to be his forever, which caused you to chuckle softly as you rolled over, so you were face to face. Kissing his lips softly, you muttered that you loved him too, and you wanted the same. With a grin, Roy pulled you close, and together you fell asleep, feeling exhausted but oh so satisfied.

[str8rat]

ISAT / FEAR AND HUNGER AU

MADFRIN

( PSSSSST I'VE GOT AO3 BOOK WHICH IS DEDICATED TO THIS AU AND SIMILAR ART RELATED STUFF AND SNIPPETS God Forgives All - Str8_Rat - In Stars And Time (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own] *DISAPPEARS* )

( more alt pics below lore )

What if BigFrin *won* the battle against his party, forever preventing them from returning home? In this AU, there could be multiple endings- branching paths that lead to different fates. The canon ending, of course, exists, but what if there was a darker, more twisted conclusion? A *bad ending* where Siffrin, in the heat of battle, ascends to become a New God, his overwhelming power reducing his friends’ health to a mere thread- single digits. 

In this ending, Siffrin would trap his party within a dimension of his own making, a warped reflection of the Forgotten Island. This realm would be unstable, a liminal space, neither fully there nor entirely gone, a place where time and reality bend under his will. His friends, worn down from their futile struggle, would be kept on the edge of life, their health eternally low but never allowed to tip into death. It was an endless state of painless exhaustion. He would protect them from harm- safe in his grasp, too weakened to resist, too exhausted to escape.

In this distorted paradise, Siffrin would finally allow himself to be affectionate, no longer restrained by fear or rejection. He would cling to them constantly, seeking the physical closeness he had always craved but never allowed himself to ask for. His voice, once hesitant, would now be calm and soothing, laced with an eerie tenderness, his smiles soft and oddly genuine, as if completely oblivious to the circumstances surrounding all of their existance now.

He would cup Isabeau’s face in his hands, his touch gentle, as if handling something precious. Mirabelle, while barely conscious, would have her hair brushed so carefully as Siffrin would keep her head in his lap. Bonnie would be the one he held most often, pulling them into long, lingering embraces, holding them close to his chest, protectively. And Odile, with her quiet strength, would find her hand entwined with his, as he clung to her in silence that the two of them always shared while spending time together. 

He would seem completely oblivious to the damage he was causing, blind to the harm of keeping them trapped in this limbo. In his mind, this was love- keeping them close, forever safe, forever together. His family. 

And if anyone dared to threaten this fragile world he had built, or the people he kept in it, anyone who tried to take his loved ones away, Siffrin would not hesitate. He would kill without question, without mercy. His kindness reserved only for the ones he held dear, his wrath unleashed on those who stood against him.

In this twisted ending, Siffrin’s affection would be both a blessing and a curse, his love so overpowering it suffocates, leaving his party helpless in the embrace of the New God he had become.

Amid this surreal horror, Loop appears, breaking into the New God’s domain. They are the only one who dares to confront Siffrin, disapproving of what he’s done. "This isn’t what *we* wanted for them, Stardust," Loop says, their voice steady yet pained.

Siffrin doesn’t want to listen, glaring at the other. He hesitates, torn between obliterating Loop for daring to interfere with his sanctuary and his lingering attachment to them. His guiding star- Helpful Loop, coming here to confront him about the actions he deemed were right and necessary. But then he notices something, something that causes his eye to slowly widen, as they look at the other more closely- 

Loop is fading. 

Their light is dimming, their form slowly disintegrating into tiny little stars. Panic flickers across Siffrin’s face, and without thinking, he reaches out, grabbing Loop’s arm in a desperate attempt to stop them from vanishing.

There are no words between them, but Loop’s expression doesn’t change. 

It’s a mixture of regret, anger, and disappointment, that cuts through Siffrin like a blade, rendering completely frozen, unable to look away from the cold look he’s being given. 

Loop has failed their mission. They were sent here for a purpose, and now that purpose is unfulfilled. 

They couldn’t even help themself. 

The Universe is unforgiving, and without mercy, it decides to get rid of them for good, allowing them to dissolve into nothing more than cosmic dust.

For a brief, heart-wrenching moment, Siffrin feels clarity. The weight of what he’s done crashes down on him- what is he doing? 

He’s hurting his family. He’s imprisoned them in this warped reality, stripping them of their will, of their freedom, keeping them in a seemingly serene state of barely conscious existence. He has twisted his love into something monstrous, something that only serves his own desperate need for connection.

But the clarity doesn’t last.

As Loop fades into the wind, stardust scattering across the endless, peaceful meadow of the domain, Siffrin’s legs give out beneath him, as he’s left staring at the spot Loop has stood just a moment ago. Alas, despite the tears forming in his eyes, the darkness creeps back into Siffrin’s mind. His expression softens once more, serene and unwavering in his conviction. 

No. He convinces himself that he’s doing the right thing. He has to protect them. He’s keeping them safe. He’s doing it for their own good.

With Loop gone, Siffrin returns to his family, now alone in this strange, beautiful prison of his making. The meadow stretches out in every direction, soft grass brushing against the skin, filled with vivid flowers painted in forbidden shades. A peaceful mirage.

He crouches down in front of Isabeau, who lies limp in the tall grass, his breath shallow, his eyes half-closed. With care, Siffrin struggles to lift him, cradling his upper body against his chest, hugging him close. Isabeau’s head rests against him, too weak to protest or pull away, or even return the embrace. Siffrin holds him like that for a long time, his cheek pressed against Isabeau’s hair, eyes closing as he murmurs to himself.

"I’m doing the right thing, right? I’m doing this for you… for all of you. I won’t let you go home. I won’t let you go. I love you too much for that. I can’t watch you get hurt anymore. I can’t.. I can’t. You’ll be safe here with me- I’ll keep you safe. I’m keeping you safe."

The meadow sways in the wind, the illusion of peace all around them, and Siffrin clings to it- clings to them- his delusions wrapping tighter and tighter around his heart. 

He won’t let them go home.

[tsams-and-co-memes]

Frank is Pisces

I made a thread for this theory on TSBS Discord server and it blew up (it blew up so much more than I ever thought it would, like Jesus Christ. I'm super happy about it though). I figured that since I moved all my canon info stuff over here from the server, I might as well move my theory stuff over too

Long post warning, since there's a lot here. A lot of this exists because I was possessed by my adhd demon one night, noticed something about Frank, and then ran wild with it

(Last two pictures are part of a chart that SqarletGecko made for this theory. If Sqarlet sees this at any point, hi, hello! I appreciate you for feeding into this, Sqarlet)

There will be more images tacked on later. I'd add them now, but unfortunately, there's a 10 picture limit to posts. As stupid as that is. ANYWAY

Frank’s strong enough to kill two different witherstorms. Although him outright killing them was never verified, it was one of the only ways he could’ve come back so soon. The only other way would’ve been to wait by the portal, but assuming Moon would’ve closed it off due to the dimensions that Frank was in housing witherstorms, Frank would’ve had to find another way out

His name is neither Frank nor Forkface, so it’s entirely possible that it could be Pisces

Sqarlet pointed out that Castor said “Pisces is probably off doing his own thing”, which could be anything, and it certainly doesn’t preclude Pisces being on earth as Frank, doing whatever he’s been doing

In the “Lunar Gets Friendzoned” vrchat episode, Castor mentions Pisces again, this time saying (in reference to how Lunar’s “final test” would go, and how someone would be sent to judge his ability to control his powers) “Could be Nebula, could be Libra. Could be Pisces, but I doubt that. Hell, it could even be Taurus.” This is the second time Castor’s mentioned Pisces, as if he doesn’t have a whopping 10 other signs he could pull names from (minus Gemini and Pisces, obviously). This could be a case of simply sticking to a smaller pool out of the 12 names, but still

Castor has mentioned Pisces offhandedly two different times. Yeah, there could be a really simple explanation for that, but it sticks out to me, and I can't pinpoint why

During an Uno video, they did a “one breath for yes, two for no” thing with Frank, and he confirmed that he had a bad past. Given some of the things that Castor has said about Taurus, it’s a possibility that Frank/Pisces was trying to get away from him. Some other Pisces traits are that they’re supposed to be super empathetic and deeply emotional. If Taurus said or did something that impacted Frank/Pisces enough, he could’ve chosen to leave

For a while, Frank didn’t seem to react much when people acted scared of him, but as he’s spent more time with the channels, he’s developing more emotionally, which would make sense if he was younger. According to a google search I ran, “Pisces emotional sensitivity is high, helping them to remain in tune with others also leaving them vulnerable to criticism, worrying about about the effects that their actions might have on others,” which could explain why he acted so sad when he briefly appeared in the lobby in an FFFS episode and everyone acted scared of him

Pisces has a heightened emotional sensitivity, they're very in tune with the emotions of those around them, and this in turn makes them worry about how others might react to them

In another Uno video, Foxy made a lighthearted comment to Frank about how he reminded him of his son, since he has a habit of inserting himself into situations and things. There are other characters who do this too, meaning that Foxy could’ve compared Frank to literally anyone, and yet, he chose a character that’s a child. If Frank is Pisces, he’d be the youngest of the astral bodies

If you watch him, Frank does have some childlike mannerisms and behaviors. The first thing is the way he sometimes wants to show someone something, but then gets upset when they touch it. It’s like when a kid gets a new toy and shows their friend, but then gets upset when their friends tries playing with it because it’s theirs. The second thing is him apparently drawing on the wall underneath Earth’s bed. Drawing on walls is something that kids do. The third thing is him trying to feed Earth a piece of pizza. Kids will sometimes try to feed people too, though it’s typically only with people they’re close with, that they know pretty well

If Frank is Pisces and therefore the youngest of the astral bodies, there’s a chance that he chose to show up in the daycare because he knows it’s a safe place for kids, and that there are good caretakers there (Sun, Moon, Earth, and Lunar). He could’ve chosen a daycare attendant-esque form to blend in better with the daycare environment, or he could’ve copied what he saw of the caretakers there, much like how kids copy the adults they see

Pisces is the youngest of the astral bodies, so everything that Frank does that seems like something a kid might do,, could sort of tie in with that. Frank has seemed to somewhat mature and "grow up" in a sense as of recently though, so these childlike habits and behaviors have begun to become rarer and rarer

Pisces has ties to illusions, dreams, and the subconscious. This could explain the times when Frank appeared in both Monty and Earth’s dreams, and then dragged the Stitchwraith into his own mind. In the case of Monty’s dream, Frank knew that they’d had problems with their dad and he’d even offered to be their listening ear, so seeing the shape Monty was in emotionally and mentally after their dad died, Frank may have guided them to an image of their dad to try to promote a form of closure and emotional healing and recovery before Monty woke up (did I mention that being a healer is also a Pisces trait?). He was silent in the dream, so Monty’s mind couldn't have heard his signature heavy breathing and did something funky with that. In Earth’s case, Frank somehow knew that she was having a nightmare and he came to wake her up, repeatedly saying “no fear”, as if he was telling her not to be afraid. With the Stitchwraith, the Stitchwraith wasn’t aware that he’d been pulled into his own mind. Frank didn’t confirm that he was until he told the Stitchwraith that “It’s just a bad dream, a nightmare”, and told him to wake up

More Pisces traits are wanting to help people and being a healer. Adding in the ties to illusions, dreams, and the subconscious, I feel like creating dreams to help people recover from things wouldn't be too farfetched. In the case of Earth, Frank knew she was having a nightmare and wanted to wake her up so that she wouldn't be scared anymore. To this day, I have no way to explain how he could've possibly known about her having a nightmare, aside from sensing her distress and/or having some kind of connection to her subconscious

I found a snippet of an article that said “When we meet Pisces, we are taken aback by their remote coldness; they often act like confused geniuses or oddballs who have trouble interacting with others.” It’s confirmed that Frank is highly intelligent; he somehow knew how to get into Moon’s computer and registered himself as the primary user, and he somehow swiped Foxy’s voicebox and installed it in himself, then took it back out and reinstalled it in Foxy. Frank is also an oddball, but I don’t really need to explain that one

Frank has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t like Ruin. He’s had many opportunities to take him out or even just attack him, but he hasn’t. Castor has stated that astral bodies typically don’t get involved with things or associate with people unless they really need to. If Frank is Pisces, he may have avoided going after Ruin because it’d go against the rules

There are some mixed messages on whether or not Pisces is a rule follower, but a couple things I found that stuck out to me implied that sometimes they follow the rules, and sometimes they do whatever they want as long as they’re satisfied. We were given a glimpse of this with Frank when Lunar tried to run him over with a car in a vrchat episode. Frank didn’t seem to care as much about the fact that he was nearly run over, and instead, became agitated with Lunar for parking incorrectly. He also made Lunar get in his car, and then proceeded to move it out of the alley and to the drive thru, where Lunar was supposed to be anyways. He might’ve also reacted poorly to Monty and Earth bringing a goose into the restaurant they were in, since animals don’t belong there. Beyond that, Frank’s also gotten upset with Sun and tried to menacingly follow him around the room when Sun cheated during a game of Uno, showing that he doesn’t like cheaters

Frank seems to have a knack for interrupting people’s dates. Most of the time, he’s trying to help but doesn’t seem to grasp that his behavior might be making people uncomfortable, BUT according to google, the Pisces sign is known for being jealous of other people’s love lives. After the death of Ruined Monty, Frank may have started to feel a little jealous of others

According to google, “most Pisceans are very good at earning a stable living,” and “they are usually very effective in any career that needs collaboration with others or inventiveness.” It’s been stated before that Frank works in at least three different restaurants, and a restaurant type environment would require collaboration with others to keep everything running smoothly. He’d be earning good money from those three restaurant jobs, and another Pisces trait is wanting to help people, so working in a restaurant would be a way for him to do that

Strengths of Pisces would include being selfless and thoughtful, passionate and creative, gratitude and self-sacrifice, tolerance and a keen understanding, and being kind and sympathetic. Weaknesses of Pisces include being influenced by their surroundings, being careless, rash, and ill-disciplined, having an inability to confront reality due to an absence of confidence, being insecure, sentimentalism, indecisiveness, and a lack of foresight. These are all from a chart I found, and although I don’t think we’ve seen too many of these weaknesses in Frank yet, we’ve definitely seen a lot of the strengths

We have no idea where Frank was before he first showed up at the daycare. Fazbear apparently had him shipped in to replace Moon, but with how easily he got into Moon’s computer, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to assume that he could’ve possibly also hopped onto a different device and sent a fake email, posing as Fazbears to keep people from asking too many questions about why he’s there

Like Sqarlet has said, we’ve noticed a pattern of astral signs following the usual astrological descriptions, but it’s not necessarily a rule, nor is it to a T. It’s very possible that Frank mostly follows the general tendencies of Pisces, but still has individual quirks and such that are different. It could be a case where perfectionism or a preference for rule-following/organization is just a lil personal thing of his, unrelated to astrology

Another thing suggested by Sqarlet is that the Pisces dealio might explain why Frank’s general choice of appearance is generally uncanny/unsettling. Astral bodies don’t necessarily have a spectacular grasp on how to Aesthetic effectively, at least from an earthling’s perspective

Eclipse once used star power to get into Puppet’s dreamscape, when Puppet was on his way to get Lunar. If star power is what makes dreamscape stuff possible, then Frank would need access to it in order to do the same (see: all the dream stuff he did with Monty and him showing up in Stitchwraith’s dreamscape)

Whenever Frank appears, whoever he appears around is usually experiencing a negative emotion of some sort. Some instances of this can be seen when he showed up and tried to talk to Monty after Monty had a fight with their dad and was frustrated, when Earth and Sun were worrying about Lunar when Lunar lost his voice, when Sun got turned into a dragon and was panicking, and when Earth had a nightmare and was freaking out over it

Foxy’s implied that Frank was probably trying his best to be helpful, during all the dates that he unintentionally ruined. Which… means that although Frank is trying his best to be helpful, he might not understand what “normal” behavior looks like, then he messes up, and then he gets upset when people misunderstand him and his intentions, or when whatever he’s doing ends up backfiring in some way. Pisces’ loves to help others and can’t stand being misunderstood, so this lines up beautifully

During a podcast episode, Frank breathed heavier when Castor and Pollux were mentioned, implying that he may know them. Given how he even attempted to speak again, he likely had some kind of thoughts or feelings toward them, too

The astral bodies are typically aware of almost everything that happens. This might explain how Frank (if he’s Pisces) knew that Foxy would be alone on Christmas. It was only Foxy, Freddy, and Francine present when the Stitchwraith took FC, so unless Frank was spying on everyone or has taken to watching the channels like Ruin apparently does, he shouldn’t know what happened

If the Foxy’s Intervention episode is anything to go by, no one ever knows where Frank is, and yet, he still knows where he’s needed and goes there to help

With the way that Pisces deals with illusions just as much as dreams and the subconscious, it’s possible that the Frank that the Stitchwaith saw was just an illusion. This could explain why Frank wasn’t hit by Stitchwraith’s weird chest laser thing (unless he quickly teleported out of the way), and why we never saw him go up to the Stithwraith and try pushing him around or anything, despite how Frank was acting toward him. We’ve seen Frank physically interact with people before, so we know he can, but if he was an illusion, that wouldn’t be possible

Something else to consider that I haven't shared with the theory thread yet (that I can remember) is that when Pisces feels hurt or betrayed in any way, they can be incredibly vengeful. Their vengeance, according to a search I ran, could be intense enough to break trust and damage relationships, if they're not careful. In killing ruined Monty, Bloodmoon may have unknowingly made Frank feel so deeply hurt that Frank has now decided that he needs to get revenge on him. He kept saying things during their encounter that made it feel like he may be entertaining the idea of getting rid of one of the twins, which... follows a very "you took away someone who meant the world to me, let's see what happens when I do it to you" sort of logic

[book-of-forbidden-knowledge]

An Exhaustive Analysis of the Ninth Gate

(Update to this post.)

For those who don’t know, The Ninth Gate is a 1999 film by Roman Polanski starring Johnny Depp, based on a novel called The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It’s about a rare book collector and appraiser called Dean Corso who is hired to authenticate a mysterious grimoire called The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. The client, Boris Balkan, is convinced that only one of the three surviving copies of the book is authentic, because his attempts to summon the Devil have been unsuccessful. Corso travels throughout Europe, comparing the cryptic woodcuts in the grimoire with those in the two other existing copies. But there’s a series of deaths and other unsettling events around the book, and he has a mysterious girl helping him. As you might expect, this is a spooky-Satanic-cult thriller, but it’s not your average spooky-Satanic-cult thriller.

Occultists love this film, because so much of real occultism consists of pouring over old books and trying to make sense of them, and also because The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows is the most realistic fictional grimoire. Almost everything about it feels extremely authentic — in particular, the set of nine woodcuts that are the key to the film’s mystery. They were drawn by Francisco Sole for the novel, but at first glance, I’d be fooled into thinking they were real seventeenth-century woodcuts. They also utilize plenty of real occult imagery, which gives the film a legitimately spiritual dimension. The woodcuts were so compelling, I immediately tried to figure them out for myself, just as Corso and Balkan do in the film. It’s hard to look at these spooky, arcane images and not go, “But what does it meaaaaan?”

From this point on, I’m going to assume you’ve seen the film. I’m going to try and avoid spoilers for the book, though.

I would argue that the real solution to the engravings is spiritual growth or enlightenment, which is the goal of most occultists. Boris Balkan sort of understands this, which is why he has so much disdain for Telfer and her edgy coven of Hollywood-Satanist cosplayers. Telfer and her coven use The Nine Gates as a prop — they aren’t actually interested in deciphering Lucifer’s secrets. But Balkan also fails, because he’s after power, not enlightenment. In that sense, both Balkan and Telfer misunderstand Lucifer. They believe him to be the kind of Lucifer that you usually see in these kinds of movies, when he is actually a spirit who brings spiritual knowledge to humanity, like the serpent in the garden. If we assume that the Girl is Lucifer (which she explicitly is in the book), then she is more benevolent an influence than anything else. (Hell, Corso doesn’t even suffer any “temptation” consequences from having sex with her!) Corso wins in the end because he puts in the effort, and the Girl judges him worthy. Lucifer’s own versions of the engravings seem to emphasize that s/he is genuinely invested in helping his/her followers towards enlightenment.

Early in the film, Balkan says that the engravings form “a kind of satanic riddle” that will summon the Devil if the engravings are assembled correctly. They’re numbered one through nine. At the end of the film, when Balkan assembles the engravings in the “proper” order, this is his interpretation of the riddle:

To travel in silence, by a long and circuitous route, to brave the arrows of misfortune, and fear neither noose nor fire, to play the greatest of all games and win, foregoing no expense, is to mock the vicissitudes of fate and gain at last the key that will unlock the Ninth Gate.

Well. I can say definitively — as both an occultist, and as a scholar who’s looked at a lot of weird occult pictures in old books — that this is incorrect. And not just because the whole sequence is rearranged.

Last time, I interpreted the engravings in the order of Balkan’s sequence, but this time, I’m going to interpret them in their numbered order, because I personally think that that’s correct. That’s why the numbers are there.

The first engraving shows a knight traveling towards a castle, with his finger to his lips. In the AT version of the engraving, the castle has four towers, while in LCF’s version, it has three. Balkan’s interpretation is “To travel in silence,” and the caption is “Silence is golden.” That caption immediately reminded me of the common occult maxim, “To Know, to Will, to Dare, to Keep Silent,” which is directly referenced in the book. In the book, the caption is different: “Only one who has battled according to the rules will prevail.” But these two captions mean essentially the same thing. The narrator says, “The rule is to know and to keep silent. Even if there is foul play, without the rule, there is no game.” The significance of this maxim is that one should not “cast pearls before swine,” share occult secrets with people who won’t understand or respect them. “Silence is golden” doesn’t have the same occult ring to it as “to know and to keep silent,” but it is a simpler, if pithy, version for the sake of the film.

This the only engraving in which there is no obvious tarot imagery. There are four Knights in tarot, one for each suit — wands, swords, cups, and pentacles. But this knight doesn’t have a symbol of any of the suits, or anything else that would connect him to the tarot knights. The important difference is in the castle towers — three in LCF’s, four in AT’s. In traditional numerology, three is a number symbolizing perfection and creation, as in the Holy Trinity, while four is the number of the solid and material, which is sometimes unlucky. (Source: Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts). Sets of three are especially common in fairy tales and mythology — three siblings, three tasks, three encounters, three magical objects, three questions, three trials or tests, repeating an action three times with the third time being different or conclusive, etc. Lucifer’s castle at the end of the film also has three sets of towers.

In the tarot, the threes also represent the completion of the first stage of a venture — the Three of Wands represents a successful enterprise, the Three of Cups represents celebration and fulfillment, and the Three of Pentacles represents recognition for your achievements. All of them have something to do with attainment except for the Three of Swords, which represents loss, heartbreak, betrayal, etc. The fours aren’t bad, representing stability and structure — the Four of Wands is joyful and peaceful, the Four of Swords takes time to rest and recoup, the Four of Cups is bored and listless, and the Four of Pentacles receives material abundance. All of them are a bit more grounded and material. Four has a spiritual dimension through the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, and has a lot of occult significance through the four elements, four directions, four alchemic properties, etc. Agrippa says that it “makes up all knowledge.” But I think in this instance, the most obvious interpretation of this engraving is that your destination will be either material gain (AT) or spiritual advancement (LCF).

The second engraving, eighth in Balkan’s sequence, shows an old man with a dog, holding two keys in his hand. In AT’s version, the keys are in his right hand, and in LCF’s, they are in his left hand. Balkan’s interpretation is “gain at last the key,” and the caption is “Open that which is closed.”

This is an obvious tarot image. This is clearly The Hermit with his lantern. IX The Hermit represents withdrawing into solitude for contemplation and meditation, to gain spiritual wisdom and awareness. He’s the archetypical guru on a mountain, and he holds the keys to enlightenment. Keys represent access to information, and the ability to pass between worlds. “Open that which is closed” is pretty straightforward — unlock the gates, receive spiritual insight.

LCF’s version has the keys in the left hand instead of the right. The Latin word for “left” is sinistram, and the word “sinister” has its current meaning because left was considered unlucky or Satanic. Left-handed people were discriminated against for this reason, until as late as the mid-20th century. In Western occultism, Satanism is especially associated with the “Left-Hand Path,” which is an iconoclastic approach to magic that emphasizes self-deification. LHPers tend to reject tradition and dogma in favor of individualism. I think that the Right-Hand- and Left-Hand Paths are a bit of a false dichotomy (you use both your hands, don’t you?), but anything Satanic is usually considered part of the Left-Hand Path by default.

Also, that Hebrew symbol next to the Hermit is the one for the number nine. In numerology, nine is a magical number, being three times three. It represents completeness, spiritual achievement, and initiation. So, that’s self-explanatory. In tarot, tens are the ultimate state of completion, so the nines are the penultimate step — the Nine of Wands gives you the strength and willpower to overcome obstacles, the Nine of Cups represents success and contentment, and the Nine of Pentacles represents celebrating an accomplishment. (Once again, the Swords are the outlier, representing fear and despair.) Nines in general are good, the perfection of three multiplied by itself. (The Hermit is also the ninth card of the Major Arcana, if you noticed.)

(All of the engravings actually have Hebrew letters on them, at the top left, but I haven’t actually studied gematria or the significance of the Hebrew alphabet in modern tarot that much. Hebrew isn’t super relevant to my own practice. So I’m going to skip over that.)

All nine engravings have a door somewhere in them, because they’re the nine gates that one must pass through in order to be initiated. The door is the most obvious in this engraving. In the first engraving, you (the Initiate) decided to walk the path. Now, you have to make the choice of whether you’re going to continue on it — take the keys, unlock the door. Shit gets real past this point.

The third engraving depicts a traveler walking towards a bridge. In the clouds above him, there’s a Cupid-like figure with an arrow pointing down at him. Balkan’s interpretation is “to brave the arrows of misfortune,” and the caption is “The lost word keeps the secret.” AT’s version is pictured here; in LCF’s version, there are two arrows, the other one pointing upwards in the quiver.

This traveller looks much more like the traditional Tarot depiction of 0 The Fool than the jester in the fourth engraving. He has his little bindle over his shoulder, and is setting off on an adventure. The Fool is happy-go-lucky and doesn’t notice the danger he might be walking into. According to TV Tropes, “The Fool” trope in media describes a person who, despite their naivete, manages to avoid harm through their luck and innocence. So, the traveler will probably not be hit by the arrow, the same way Corso avoids the collapsing scaffolding. However, in alchemy, Cupid’s arrow represents the universal solvent that reduces all matter to primordial prima materia, the necessary first step of the alchemical process. The essence of love in the arrows represents their higher spiritual nature, so maybe the traveller will have to be hit to continue onward. Corso is hardly an innocent person, but he does walk blindly into solving the Nine Gates mystery, and he wins because he’s not expecting to get anything out of it beyond understanding of it.

The two arrows in the LCF version seem to reinforce the idea of there being two possible outcomes. The arrow pointing up and the other one pointing down could also reference the famous occult maxim, “As above, so below,” adding another spiritual dimension to it. Balkan’s interpretation of the engraving reminded me a lot of a certain famous soliloquy: “To be or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them.” In this scene, Hamlet is considering whether or not to take his own life. But when applied to this engraving, these lines seem to once again suggest the two possible outcomes — you can suffer and die, or move on towards your goal.

And then there’s the caption. “The lost word keeps the secret.” Well, it’s pretty obvious what that refers to — the ninth engraving, replaced with a forgery that changes the meaning of the entire thing. The missing engraving contains the secret. But that caption seems completely irrelevant to this engraving, except that the face of the archer doesn’t look remotely like a baby’s, as putti usually do —it looks like an old man’s, specifically, the Ceniza brothers’, who removed and replaced the missing engraving. That was a change made for the sake of the film; in the book version, the archer has a more traditionally angelic face. The book also provides a poem that is supposed to indicate the correct sequence of engravings, which ends with “And when the reflection in the mirror shows the way, / you will find the lost word / which brings light from darkness.” According to Baroness Ungern (Kessler in the film), “the lost word” is the Devil’s true name — the Satanic equivalent of the Tetragrammaton, which turns darkness into light. Finding such a secret necessitates taking some risks.

The fourth engraving, which is second in Balkan’s sequence, is of a jester standing at the entrance to a labyrinth. In LCF’s version the labyrinth’s exit is open, while in AT’s it is bricked up. Balkan interprets this as meaning “by long and circuitous route,” while the caption reads “Fate is not the same for all.” that seems fairly straightforward — Balkan and Corso have different fates. Corso is able to find his way out of the Labyrinth, but Balkan’s exit is bricked up. This is because he never properly experienced the journey the way Corso did, he just wanted the payoff and tried to take shortcuts.

The Labyrinth is a very old symbol, and it carries the dual symbolism of a death trap in which there is a Minotaur, and a path to spiritual enlightenment. It can represent the Underworld or the darkness of the subconscious mind, with the Minotaur being your Shadow. Either you are trapped in the Labyrinth and eaten by the monster, or you find your way back out into the light having gained some self-awareness. The jester is probably meant to represent The Fool again, the naive adventurer who travels over the threshold and into the realm of the subconscious and symbolic, i.e. the Labyrinth. You can be the Fool in the tarot sense, and set off on your spiritual journey, or you can be the fool in the traditional sense, and enter a death trap with no exit.

As for the dice in the foreground, this seems to reinforce the caption’s point about fate. But dice, like tarot cards, can be used as both a game and a divination tool — it is the assumption of the diviner that random chance is always meaningful. And indeed, the visible faces on each die add up to 6 — 666.

The fifth engraving, which is sixth in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a man counting coins while Death stands behind him with a pitchfork and hourglass. Balkan’s interpretation is “and win, foregoing no expense,” while the caption reads “In vain.”

Balkan is an idiot. Exactly like the man in the engraving, he is focused entirely on the money and power, and completely misses the literal shadow of Death standing behind him. How does one overlook the significance of that? There’s a big difference between “I won the game so now I get money” and “in vain”! Of course, this means that Balkan is too focused on material pursuits and misses that he is about to die. In AT’s version, the sand is at the top of the hourglass, while in LCF’s version, it is at the bottom — the man has run out of time. The expression “you can’t take it with you” comes to mind. Money and material goods don’t ultimately matter compared to spiritual growth. Fixation on them is ultimately pointless.

In tarot, XIII Death almost never represents physical death. Instead, it represents change, usually a change for the better. Death is about letting go of old things so that new things can come, stepping through a threshold into another life or state of being. This can be difficult or emotionally painful, but it is necessary and ultimately beneficial. If The Hanged Man is the chrysalis, then Death is the emerging butterfly (the Greek word psyche means both “soul” and “butterfly,” because butterflies represent the souls of the dead). Death is a required step towards enlightenment, and if you refuse to acknowledge this, it isn’t going to go well for you.

The checkerboard floor probably continues to reinforce the theme of duality. As for the pitchfork, maybe the reason Death has a peasant’s pitchfork instead of a scythe is because pitchforks are associated with Satan, or it could be a representation of peasants taking revenge on rich people. Or it could be a reference to American Gothic. I think it’s the first one.

The sixth engraving, fourth in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a man hanging upside-down by his ankle, and an arm with a flaming sword reaching out of a castle tower. Balkan’s interpretation of this is “and fear neither noose nor fire,” which proves he knows fuck all about tarot. No wonder he got the riddle wrong. This one is so blindingly obvious. The man isn’t hanging by his neck, he’s hanging by his foot. He’s the Hanged Man.

XII The Hanged Man is a strange and disturbing card at first glance, but it has become one of my favorites. The Hanged Man is almost never depicted hanging by his neck; he hangs by his foot, and has a serene expression, indicating that he wants to be there. He represents endurance of a period of tribulation, suffering, surrender, or introspection in order to obtain wisdom, enlightenment, self-awareness, and insight. Like the Hermit, he indicates a need to be passive in the service of introspection, but in a different sense: while the Hermit contemplates in solitude, the Hanged Man undergoes some kind of ordeal. He goes through a metamorphosis, just like the caterpillar that hangs upside-down in its chrysalis to become a butterfly. He’s a Christlike figure, evidenced by the halo around his head in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and the fact that he willingly suffers for a higher purpose. He even wears the same colors as Jesus in Da Vinci’s The Last Supper in the RWS deck, although I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not. The Hanged Man in the RWS deck hangs by the right foot, but in LCF’s version of the engraving, he hangs by the left foot, maybe reiterating the Left-Hand-Path association.

The caption to the engraving is “I am enriched by death,” which is a million times more meaningful than Balkan’s interpretation. If you’re an occultist, that line is probably self-explanatory. Pretty much everything mystical involves that theme of (symbolically) dying and being resurrected. The alchemical process has three stages — nigredo, which is death, albedo, which is the ascension of the soul, and rubedo, which is returning to life in a “purified” body as a more spiritual being. The Hero’s Journey follows this same pattern — the hero entering the Underworld or the Labyrinth and facing trials that allow them to spiritually ascend and achieve apotheosis (or something close to it). It’s everywhere in books, movies, and video games. It is the initiation ritual. Most occultists figuratively go through it in one way or another. And in tarot, XII The Hanged Man is at the rough midpoint of the Fool’s journey through the Major Arcana, and immediately followed by XIII Death. It is a difficult step, but a prerequisite for spiritual advancement. “I am enriched by death.” You cannot be reborn as a new and better version of yourself without first having died.

(It is sort of odd that this engraving comes after the one representing Death, though. In a tarot deck, it directly precedes Death.)

I don’t have much to say about the flaming sword. It could be foreshadowing Balkan’s death (more on that later), or it could represent the flaming sword of the angel of Eden (i.e. guarding spiritual knowledge, which Satan famously offered to humans). It could also be a symbol of burning away the old self, which relates to the Hanged Man image. It’s also held in the left hand.

The seventh engraving, fifth in Balkan’s sequence, is of a king and a peasant playing a chess game. Two dogs are fighting in the background, and the moon can be seen through the window. In AT’s version, the board is black, and in LCF’s, the board is white. Balkan interprets it as “to play the greatest of all games,” and the caption is “The disciple surpasses the master.”

The tarot symbolism that I see here is that of XVIII The Moon, which has dogs baying at it in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. The Moon represents the subconscious, imagination, and dreams, but also nightmares, madness, and illusion. The illusion here is probably the missing engraving being replaced by the forgery. The themes of the subconscious are again reinforced. Underneath the Moon, a black dog and a white dog fight each other, almost seeming to create a yin/yang shape — this brings the dark and the light into balance, the same way the Moon spends equal times dark and bright as it goes through its phases. The game is chess, which is played with black and white pieces, and the board is either black or white. The game seems to be a draw, making the peasant and the king equals, just as the dogs are unable to defeat each other. So, this engraving is all about reconciling dualities.

There’s another layer to this. God is the “King of Kings,” so this could demonstrate a human becoming God’s equal. This is basically the goal of occultism — to become like God, in some form. Left-Hand Path’ers in particular seem to like the idea of becoming gods themselves, or even “surpassing” God. Since the book was created by Lucifer, this could tie in to Lucifer’s desire to become God’s equal that got him cast out of Heaven (but I’m not the biggest fan of that story, so I won’t go any further with that). To the occultist, man can participate in divinit, just as God can become a man — as above, so below. That’s also a form of reconciling the duality of human and divine.

The caption, “The disciple surpasses the master,” probably refers to this, but it could also refer to Corso surpassing Balkan and succeeding where Balkan failed. Any good teacher wants their students to have learned so well that they surpass them. God (or Lucifer) intends for his disciples to surpass him, but Balkan tries (and fails) to prevent Corso from surpassing him.

The eighth engraving, which is seventh in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a praying man about to be bludgeoned by a knight with a mace, with the Wheel of Fortune in the background. In LCF’s version, the knight with the mace has a halo. Balkan’s interpretation is “to mock the vicissitudes of fate” and the caption says “Virtue is defeated.”

This engraving is the most changed between its book and film version, so much so that it changes the meaning significantly. The figures in the engravings were altered for the film to make them look like the actors: this one depicts Balkan hitting Corso in the back of the head with a mace, which happens in the film. The halo around Balkan’s head in the LCF engraving makes very little sense, since Balkan obviously isn’t the hero here. Is this about villains defeating virtuous people? Corso isn’t exactly a virtuous person.

The book clarified this engraving for me. In the book, the engraving depicts a knight about to behead a lady:

Long story short, the book has a whole second plot revolving around a manuscript of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. The woman in this engraving is identified with Milady, one of the villains of The Three Musketeers. The knight has a halo in LCF’s version because his execution of her is righteous. He’s the protagonist whom we’re supposed to be rooting for, and she’s the villain whom we’re supposed to despise. As for the caption, virtue is defeated when the protagonists sacrifice their moral high ground in order to defeat the villains, which will inevitably require force, violence, or deception. All of that gets lost in the film’s version.

This is also an alchemical image of beheading, which represents dissolution, the “nigredo” or spiritual death. The praying person represents the matter of the Philosopher’s Stone, and the weapon represents “mercurial water,” the universal solvent that dissolves the matter into prima materia so it can be remade. This is the first major step in the alchemical process, which separates the soul from the body and paves the way for initiation and spiritual understanding. So, that reiterates the death/rebirth theme of the sixth engraving. In this context, the halo indicates that this stage is necessary for spiritual development.

The Wheel of Fortune in the background is a medieval motif that shows how the whims of fate are apparently random. Some get to be kings, others are serfs, and your fortunes can turn at any moment. Just when you think everything is great, someone hits you on the back of the head. In tarot, X The Wheel of Fortune means exactly what you would expect it to — a twist of fate, a change of fortune. Whether it’s for better or for worse depends on the context and the cards around it. Life is full of ups and downs, so enjoy what you’ve got while you have it, etc. Sometimes when it shows up, it can mean that you should trust in fate. Nothing about this card suggests mocking it.

And finally, we come to the ninth and final engraving. This depicts a woman who looks suspiciously like the Girl reading a book, ostensibly The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, and riding a dragon with seven goatlike heads. There is a castle in the background, and the castle is a real place. There are three versions of the engraving — this one, which is signed by AT and has the castle as-is, a forged LCF engraving that shows the castle in flames, and the real one. Balkan’s interpretation is “that will unlock the Ninth Gate,” and the caption is “Now I know that from Darkness comes Light.”

The woman is apparently an image of the “Whore of Babylon” from Revelations, who rides a seven-headed dragon. I’m not really sure what she’s supposed to represent, beyond being generally Satanic. Of course, Crowley recast her as a sex goddess; in Thelema, Babylon is the feminine version of the divine creative principle. The seven heads of her dragon are significant — seven is the number of secrets, mysteries, magic, introspection, and searching for inner truth, which have been running themes this whole time. Seven also signifies creation, completeness, and rest, since God created the world in seven days. In tarot, the sevens present a new challenge after the perfection of the sixes — the Seven of Wands brings new obstacles that require determination to overcome; the Seven of Cups represents imagination, dreams, and illusions, so back to The Moon again (and the illusion of the forgery); the Seven of Swords represents deception or a con artist (like the Ceniza twins, or maybe Balkan); and the Seven of Pentacles represents a threshold or a new opportunity, and reflecting on one’s achievements. That all aligns scarily well with the situation here.

The critical illusion is that the “LCF” engraving with the burning castle is a forgery. So, Balkan sets himself on fire for no reason other than egomania. This image is similar to XVI The Tower in Tarot:

The Tower is one of the scariest cards to get. If Death is a difficult but beneficial change, The Tower is a dramatic turn for the worse, complete destruction and devastation. It is struck by lightning and destroyed, going up in flames. I drew this card shortly before the pandemic hit. That was The Tower — destruction, upheaval, devastation, but with the promise of rebuilding. I also had to deal with a lot of emotional turmoil because of an unrelated thing that happened around the same time, and it shook me to my core. So, obviously the forged engraving leads to Balkan’s destruction.

The true ninth LCF engraving shows the sun shining from behind one of the castle’s towers:

Replacing The Tower with The Sun is a drastic difference. If The Tower is one of the worst cards to get, XIX The Sun is one of the best. The Sun is a good omen in every capacity. It represents everything that these engravings have been working towards — spiritual growth, fulfillment, success, enlightenment, revelation of secrets, good fortune, etc. It fits right in with Lucifer’s status as the Light Bringer, and it is the solution. (The true engraving is also very reminiscent of The Star, which directly follows The Tower, and represents hope and the light at the end of the tunnel.) The jagged rocks at the bottom of the castle in the other two versions are missing here, and the castle is more accessible, with a visible path. The woman gestures directly to it.

The rest of the scene is much more shadowed in the true version, which fits right in with the caption: “Now I know that from Darkness comes Light.” I, in my obsession with Shadow work, interpret this as confronting the dark parts of oneself and bringing them out into the light to become a whole person, and to grow spiritually. This goes back to the Labyrinth, needing to enter the dark Underworld or the realm of the subconscious in order to gain spiritual wisdom and finally achieve enlightenment. Everything in the engravings seems to point back to that — needing a period of introspection, reconciling of duality, obtaining safe passage through the various trials until you see The Sun, which is followed by Judgement (resurrection) and The World (fulfillment). The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows are like the seven gates of the Underworld that Inanna must pass through (and that eight-pointed star is a symbol of Inanna). Corso passes through the Ninth Gate, out of the Kingdom of Shadows and into the light.

Throughout all of this, the Devil acts as the facilitator of Corso’s initiation. As the Supreme Magus and the bearer of spiritual knowledge, she (he? it?) set this book out in to the world in the hopes that someone will complete the nine stages of their initiation and reach enlightenment. The power that Balkan seeks is like a side-effect of that enlightenment. When you achieve mastery, you do get power, but power was never the point. If you seek power first, you’re more likely to be led astray. Not that The Devil cares either way — I’m sure it’s all very amusing to her.

So now we’re left with one more piece of the riddle: the correct order of the engravings. This requires a bit more context from the book, which provides this poem as a clue to the correct sequence:

It is the animal with the tail in its mouth that encircles the labyrinth. where you will go through eight doors before the dragon which comes to the enigma of the word. Each door has two keys: one is air and the other matter, but both are the same thing. You will place matter on the serpent’s skin in the direction of the rising sun, and on its belly the seal of Saturn. You will break the seal nine times, And when the reflection in the mirror shows the way, you will find the lost word which brings light from darkness.

(This sounds so authentic, I went and checked to see if it was referencing a real alchemical text.)

Based on this, I’m guessing that the fourth engraving is supposed to be first: the Fool setting out on their journey through the Labyrinth, which is identified with the ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail. The ouroboros represents prima materia, the innate interconnectedness of everything, and the cyclical nature of life and death. Next, “the enigma of the word” references the caption of the third engraving, braving whatever danger to discover forbidden knowledge. The mention of two keys refers to the second engraving: the two keys themselves, of air and matter, refer to the alchemical states of “fixed” (material) and “volatile” (spiritual). They are “the same thing” because, in alchemy, matter must be converted between fixed and volatile states over and over and over again, until it reaches a perfect balance of the two, which is the Philosopher’s Stone. Beyond that, I’m kind of at a loss. There aren’t any other obvious references to the engravings in the rest of the poem, and the remaining lines are much harder to interpret. Here’s my best guess: The “serpent’s skin” reflects the scale pattern above the door in the seventh engraving, where the chess players are carefully placing pieces. The “seal of Saturn” probably refers to the seventh engraving, since Saturn is associated with death and frugality. Breaking the seal nine times might refer to the eighth engraving, of the beheading, and the reflection in the mirror might refer to the sixth engraving, since the Hanged Man is all about introspection. The final line about bringing light from darkness of course refers to the ninth engraving.

But I’m guessing at this point. It seems these engravings still have secrets to reveal to me! Hey, at least I know more about it than the book’s equivalent of Balkan, who takes the poem extremely literally. It goes about as well for him as it does for film!Balkan. Maybe I'm reading too deep into it, but it sure is fun!

[fischlich]

pondering corrupted storches....... im stroking my wizard beard deep in contemplation. this straight up might make zero sense but eurm. i dont think theyre real! at least not in the same way the corrupted eules, mynahs, and stars are i'm under the belief that sierpinski is currently the only place being Fleshed for Real. nowhere is straight up noneuclidian and also at the bottom of a mine and rotfront seems to take place during ariane's time there. also ariane's room is straight up in the wall and the train still runs despite the Flesh i say this because corrupted storches only appear in nowhere and rotfront! at least if my memory is correct that is.. not to mention theyre a bit more? Weird? than the other corrupteds. the stars, eules, and mynahs are all visibly "oh yeah that guy got fleshed. shucks." but storches have an entire leg sticking out of their face, not to mention that leg looks different from their actual legs (for example, it isn't jointed!). How does that even Get there?

while I can definitely see the argument that it's just even More proof that reality is breaking down and both nowhere and rotfront are the result of reality eroding into flesh thanks to ariane, I think its more fun to consider it an off-branch dimension like the red desert that can distort reality as it pleases, including making storches grow legs for faces! In the "normal" dimension, Sierpinski is the only place fleshed, nowhere doesn't exist, and rotfront is proudly flesh-free. Or it could be that ariane pulled those places from space and time and fleshed them in the off-branch dimension and theyre just Missing from the normal one. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out why there's no corrupted storches on Sierpinski when we see a dorm room full of dead ones ripe for the fleshening. and it's not that replikas can't be fleshed once they're dead, on the worker floor at the beginning of the game there's two visibly dead and not-fleshed eules who become corrupted eules later on.

so why not the storches? why do they only appear corrupted in nowhere and rotfront? i can tell you..... let me get my tinfoil hat on first... its because they don't exist! and neither does nowhere or rotfront! at least not in our dimension! love wins! this probably makes no sense sorry i ponder this game so often