#gosh this was long

[babycharmander]

(BOOK OF BILL SPOILERS)

I just finished reading The Book of Bill and I am kindof losing my mind over some of this stuff.

I had wondered if Alex Hirsch might make Bill sympathetic in some way and oh boy I was not expecting him to do it so successfully (and without cheapening Bill's character).

So, we learn that Bill was born into a 2D world... as a mutant who can see into the third dimension. He claims he was absolutely loved by all, but when talking about his powers, he mentions under Pyrokinesis:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane / Starting fires with his brain." The kids in grade school could be so cruel. But where are they now, huh? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

So probably not quite as liked as he was letting on. To add to that, there's the silly straw page, which looks like silly nonsense until you decipher some of the codes:

"EYE DOCTOR OF A DIFFERENT KIND / WHO WANTS TO MAKE HIS PATIENTS BLIND" "THE DOCTOR SAYS / THREE SIPS A DAY / WILL MAKE THE VISIONS / GO AWAY"

I wasn't sure what this meant until I saw someone point out... he was seeing a third dimension that no one else could see. His parents probably took him to the eye doctor to try to "fix" him. Which, speaking of his eye doctor, the coded message in the section about human eyeballs says something interesting:

"MY OPTOMETRIST NEVER SAW IT COMING"

It could be a joke given beforehand he's talking about dissecting a human eye, but given the previous hints of medical abuse, I wouldn't put it past him that he tried to get revenge on his eye doctor.

Oh yeah and the whole thing about him setting his entire dimension on fire? Yeah it turns out it was entirely a mistake (he just wanted everyone to understand the third dimension he was seeing so they could be free of only two dimensions), he was so traumatized by it he blacks out when trying to recall it. He deeply, deeply regrets it, and...

"What? Your ENTIRE home dimension? destroyed? How? By what?" Bill looked distant, more distant than I'd ever seen him. "By a monster."

He sees himself as a monster.

And yet, he's not some innocent, misunderstood being. He still revels in causing pain and chaos. He's terrible in general, but becomes incredibly abusive toward Ford.

"YOU'RE MY PROPERTY. DON'T FORGET IT. The hillbilly abandoned you, your father won't want you returning without millions, you have no friends, and if you died out here in the snow, who would even miss you?"

Which... speaking of him and Ford...

Yes, yes, I know people ship them. But like, whether you see their relationship as romantic or platonic (I see it as the latter), there's some interesting parallels to be made here.

Both Bill and Ford are mutants who were mocked for their being different. (Bill was not physically a mutant, as far as we know, but more in the sense of him having vision stronger than that of everyone else in his dimension, and also having special powers. And he does describe himself as a mutant.) Both became social outcasts, separated from their families but still haunted by them (Ford seeing commercials of Stan on TV and running across old photos of him and his brother, Bill being haunted by his family in some form). Neither could return home for one reason or another. Both more powerful than their peers (Ford intellectually, Bill in terms of actual powers). Both of them isolated and alone. (Yes, Bill does have the Henchmaniacs, but they seem like shallow friends, and only really seem to follow him out of a desire to have a place to party.)

Ford was not aware of most of this, aside from knowing that Bill could not go home because his dimension was destroyed. But Bill absolutely saw himself in Ford. There was no other person he tried to use whom he felt a stronger connection to.

And he actually seems to care about Ford--he actually gave him a birthday present, and when Ford didn't like it, he decided to get drunk and party with him instead to make up for it.

And then when Ford realizes what Bill's plan actually is and refuses to go along with it, and fights back no matter what Bill does, Bill completely breaks down.

After living for trillions of years, he met someone who was like him, and that person rejected him.

He goes berserk, wreaking havoc, being caught by the dimensional authority that he's been taunting for most of his life.

And then after dying and being cast out of hell for being too annoying, he winds up faced with the Axolotl, who sends him to therapy, where he continues to break down further, sending out the book in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone who will help him break loose and wreak havoc once again.

"You have no friends, and if you died ... who would even miss you?"

I don't know, Bill. Who would even miss you?

In short,

[ID: The front and back of one of Bill's Valentines cards. On the front is a black void with Bill Cipher lying down without his hat, gazing blankly upwards, with the text "I DON'T WANT TO DIE ALONE" above him. On the back is a simple white "TO/FROM" in red, with a red outline illustration of Bill spontaneously growing a mouth and eating a realistic, bloody heart. /end ID]

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[egophiliac]

NEW BIRTHDAY THEME IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

BIRTHDAY SLUMBER PARTY, HERE WE COME

I think the theme is more loungewear than straight-up pajamas, but hey, I'm not complaining! (and -- look, we still have the groovies, I'm not giving up hope for animal kigurumi until I gotta)

[grey-viridian]

3 a.m.

[l-in-the-light]

Trafalgar Law on touching and being touched

It won't be a perverted post despite the title lol. But I won't stop your imagination, be free!

There's this funny theme going on with Law and Luffy in particular that picked my interest.

Luffy touched him first.

And he later returned the gesture, much more awkwardly.

Again, Luffy grabbed him angrily first.

Law made sure to return the gesture. (btw he also does it with Zoro, who was the first one to wrap an arm around him at post-Dressrosa feast. In Wano Law has no problem grabbing Zoro and shouts at him angrily. Again, it was Zoro who initiated the touch first).

Law grabbing Luffy to teleport them makes Luffy react in a curious way, you wanna know why?

Because it totally feels like this moment. Both Law and Ace, right after getting uncuffed, grabbed Luffy in same way to get him to a safer place. Ace-Law parallel in relation to Luffy kills me. The whole Dressrosa arc's plotline between Luffy and Law is just Marineford Went Well This Time. Ngl I kinda hated Oda at first for that. Now i dig it.

He didn't seem to like that. Luffy says "Let's all get along well!", but Law thinks alliances don't have to "get along".

Mistranslation here. What Law says here, being so surprised, is "nakayoshi ka?!" which means "you two get along?!" or "you two are buddy-buddies?!". It's a callback to Luffy declaring that Law and Strawhats crew should get along (he uses same word then, nakayoku-get along), Law learns here that Luffy's crew indeed "gets along well". You can interpret it whatever way you wish, but I will use it this time to put this scene into context:

The same gesture Luffy did to him before, but Law didn't return it to Luffy - that's because they're not crewmates. But he takes the lesson to heart and "gets along" with his own crew. Omg I can't believe i'm writing it, I make Law sound like this completely awkward adult who doesn't know how to be friends with people.

But bear with me, the shit is only starting. If you don't want to have feels I reccommend you just laugh at it and stop reading here. I digged up a feels landmine by accident. In-depth study starts below!

It's also a possible callback to the "reassurance" Law got from Cora-san. "I'm counting on you to escape" and Law did. He counts for his crew to steer the submarine well in similar manner.

Law's family didn't seem very touchy-feely, so please keep that in mind as well. He's got limited experience with touches and the few touches he did get familiar with were either taken away from him or brutalized.

Law getting patted on the head lovingly by his parent.

Next time this loving gesture happens, he gets thrown from like two-floor building into a pile of garbage.

And then he gets lied to that everything will be fine. We all know it wasn't.

Do you still wonder why he hates being touched on the head?

The sister touches his face gently while showing child Law support and compassion, reminding him not to despair, someone kind will help him.

Corazon doing the same gentle touch to the face while crying for him, thinking of all the pain Law had to experience. Indeed, the world sent Law someone kind. And Law lost him and blames himself for that.

Law holding Lammy's hand while lying to her that it will be alright. He never does that gesture again to anyone.

The sister holding Law's hand.

"Don't come closer! Don't touch us! We will get infected!" even doing the barrier gesture (I guess that's why Law doesn't get along with Bartolomeo). I used only few examples, there is much more, I just couldn't bear posting them all. Anyway, Law's got the message, his touch is unwanted. The body and mind remembers this.

Similar shit said at the auction in Sabaody about Fishmen, we don't see Law's reaction to that, but we can guess already that it was for sure triggering. Those people talking are sitting not that far away from him.

Ever wondered why Law throws people when teleporting? Besides the fact he avoids making contact with anyone unless they initiate it first, because that trauma is still strong in him ("Stay away! Don't come closer!"), there is one other possible reason:

Wonder no more! He does it to people because that's how people treated him as well, even people who apparently loved him.

Now that I have ruined the "Law is just an awkward unsocial nerd" joke for you, let me offer something to warm your heart a bit in exchange:

Corazon made sure to touch Law a lot and hold him in his arms, despite being often clumsy about it. I think he understood Law's trauma about being touched and his fear to touch or approach anyone, and tried to help him overcome it.

Being hugged and trying to return the gesture. Corazon's efforts did bring some results! But it only works for very few people, Law is still wary of people he doesn't know well. He expects to be unwanted and acts uneccessarily cold, distant and unapproachable because of that. But if you scroll back to the beginning of this post, you can see that he is trying his best to overcome it as well, one step at a time. Some things just can't be rushed.

And hey, at least he seems to be actually relaxed and almost like he *enjoys* being carried around. You think it makes him look uncool? Definitely. But suddenly it feels like Something Important, kinda intimate in a way and not just a silly comedy moment. It's a sign Law relies on people when he lets them carry him and that's why he doesn't protest.

Sanji is like "Why are you relaxing like that?! Get off!!" Finally, it makes sense why Law makes such a sour face here. Sanji should be grateful for the rare privileage after all! Anyway, this is anime-only extension, in manga Sanji actually doesn't tell Traffy to get off and Law chooses to scramble by himself, which doesn't taint the fragile trust those two just shared.

For those who made it to the end of this post, have I ruined Law's comedy moments for you forever? Because I sure just did that for myself.

I could also add one more cute thing from One Piece World Seeker Law's dlc, but I will let those interested to discover it by themselves!

I'm also amazed by the consistency of this theme. Both manga and anime never forget that touch is seemingly a big deal for Law.

[feelo-fick]

more misc au art... (the last two are unrelated but shh)

GAAAHHHH i promise ive got actual stuff cooking im just scared to post it/motivation to finish art Hard :"D clutching my head... always forever 24/7 thinking about them...

[hirayaea]

xavier is just casually saying things like this in the office

tara for sure is squealing somewhere in the background

meanwhile, someone nero mutters, “some of us are single, you know…”

/

xavier doesn’t deny allegations when asked if you’re together

in fact, this man is so sly he fans the flames on purpose, but when you ask him about it he just goes: “hmmm? I told them we’re partners”

/

the next day, a “no flirting” sign is posted in the office

xavier is clueless, “who was flirting?” he asks, as he brings you a cup of iced coffee and mixes the gum syrup in front of you, drinking a bit of it himself before handing it to you

“we should share one coffee cup so there’s less trash”, he says, oblivious that tara is still giggling and the other men in the office want to shake him

/

somehow a sign also ends up at jeremiah’s flower shop

xavier asks where are the signs coming from???

jeremiah shrugs, “I don’t know about the one in your office, but I‘ve had that one for years”

/

source: memoria - fluffy trap

[pixlokita]

Wanted to draw @tzitzimitl-eztli ‘s Freddy bear with baby bear Greg :’v just love your arts sm they make me cry my eyes out sometimes so cute ( °̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥˟°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ )💖

[minho-knows]

LEE KNOW | MET GALA 2024 PREPARATION

[swan2swan]

The more things change, the more things stay the same, eh, Darius?

[mylovelookup]

Very fast sketch for @justalilguyoops because WIPIP ended and it was everything to me

[diurnalvl]

seven years ago, they used to be friends. almost.

1 / 2 / ?

[cowardlykrow]

"That is where you are wrong, my boy!"

@ratb4stard3 and I deliver another Cowardlyghostbro's(™) collab ✨💛

[egophiliac]

something quick to relieve the tension of these final hours ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

close-up, 'cause it got kinda lost in resizing:

[crispywizardtale]

[tallyhoot]

[_^