#guide to axolotls

[millenianthemums]

Cross-posting the first chapter of the Bill & Mabel Friendship AU fic from Ao3 to tumblr! I thought it would be fun to do some chapter art for it. Find the fic on Ao3 here!

Next chapter

Chapter index

————————-

Bill Cipher woke up in darkness.

That was what he thought at first, anyway. Darkness. Pitch black, impenetrable darkness, but nothing that worried him. Just a simple thought and he could light up his surroundings.

He tried. Nothing happened.

That didn’t mean anything, he thought, pushing down a momentary surge of panic. He just needed to focus. He could concentrate better if he snapped his fingers.

He tried. That didn’t work either. He couldn’t snap his fingers. Why couldn’t he snap his fingers? Where were his fingers? Where were his hands?

The panic surged forth again. He tried to relax, but a thousand questions were piling up in his mind. Where was he right now? How did he get here? Why couldn’t he tell where his hands were? It was dark, sure, but he couldn’t even feel them. He couldn’t feel anything . He tried to send his vision outward, reaching his mind out to feel around for a depiction of himself to look through. A better vantage point would help him orient himself. It could be anything. A bit of graffiti scrawled on a dumpster would be enough. Anything that would let him see something other than darkness.

He couldn’t find anything. Why couldn’t he find anything? There were always options, billions of options, billions of little eyes scattered across billions of worlds like uncountable spy drones. Almost too many to choose from, that was the only problem. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sought one out and not found one. He kept trying to push his mind further, to try and push through the darkness, but it seemed like it went on forever. He thought he was gasping for breath from the effort, he must have been, but he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t feel himself breathing. He tried calling out. He couldn’t hear his own voice.

The panic overflowed. What was happening to him? What was this place? How did he even get here?! He tried to wrangle his unraveling mind enough to mentally retrace his steps. The last thing he remembered, he’d been in the Fearamid. He’d been celebrating. All his millenia of work had finally begun to pay off, countless eons spent watching and waiting and carefully prodding at history were about to come to fruition. Weirdmaggedon was finally here. At long last he was about to complete his life’s work, to complete the universe, to finally have everything he’d always deserved. He just needed one equation to collapse the barrier between him and reality. Ford was just about to hand it over when–

Ford.

It all came flooding back. It was Ford. Or, no, it wasn’t Ford, it was a trick . He and his brother had tricked him, trapped him in the wrong mind, and he’d been too caught up in the fervor of victory to realize it until it was too late. Until the jaws of the trap had slammed shut behind him, cutting off his exit, no escape, no way to backtrack, nowhere to run from the flames closing in, from Stanley towering over him, and then…

And then.

His mind scattered as horror tore through it. Was this death? Was this his afterlife? Was this how he’d spend the rest of eternity, an orphaned mind cut off from all senses, floating in the void? Trapped alone with his thoughts forever? He tried to call out again, to scream for help. There had to be somebody somewhere who could hear him. Somebody who could end this. He couldn’t stay like this. Torture would be better than this. If this universe really wanted to punish him so badly, it could set him on fire, or tear him apart into atoms, or pluck all his organs out one by one every day for eternity. Anything. Anything but this. Anything but nothing, forever.

Eventually, Bill accepted that trying to scream wasn’t working. He couldn’t even feel his own throat to know if the sound was escaping. And even if he was really screaming, who would answer? Who would listen? The Henchmaniacs had probably all split as soon as they saw the party was over. None of them were exactly “ride or die” types. They stuck around while the music was playing, but he knew they’d never stay late to pick up the solo cups all over the house. It had never been a problem before. He’d always been able to keep the music playing, keep stringing them along with promised glory and well-placed threats. But now? Forget it. They were all long gone by now.

And who else was there? Was there any other living creature left out there in the multiverse who knew who he was and didn’t have it out for him? His one last hail mary seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. There was no sign of anybody. No sign that anyone cared at all.

He was glad, for just a moment, that he couldn’t feel his face. He didn’t want to know if he was crying. He never gave himself time for self-pity if he had any choice. But now the only thing he had left was time. All the time he could ever need to torture himself with.

All he’d wanted to do was fix things. To make everything better. To make everyone see that without all their stupid rules, everything could be better than they’d ever let themselves imagine. He could have shown them. He’d tried to show them. That was all he’d wanted to do. And this was the thanks he got for it?!

It could have been any amount of time that he spent in that place, stewing in rage and despair. It could have been days or weeks or maybe years, it really didn’t matter. All that mattered was that eventually, he ran out of energy. He gave up trying to scream loud enough to reach his own ears. He just focused on slowing his mind to a crawl. Stopping his thoughts. Trying to just fade away into the darkness, waiting to see if maybe someday something would happen.

Nothing happened for a very long time.

But eventually something did.

The first thing he noticed was a sound. Soft and gentle, reverberating through the void. Bill snapped to awareness, his mind spinning wildly as he tried to remember how to think. He’d heard something. He’d heard something. Someone else was here.

“WHO’S THERE?!” He winced at the sound of his own voice. He almost didn’t even recognize it; it was strained and ragged, on the verge of giving out completely. He didn’t care. He could hear it. That was what mattered right now.

The sound returned, and this time he caught what it said. A voice, speaking a single word. “Bill.”

“WHO IS THAT?! WHERE ARE YOU?!?” he roared, desperately scanning the void in front of him.

“Bill! Stop screaming. I’m right next to you.”

With a start, Bill realized the voice was directly behind him. He found that he could move again, turned around, and was instantly flashbanged by a searing ray of pink light. Floating before him was a massive pale creature, all soft rounded angles, with a long finned tail and a remarkably stupid-looking face.

Bill would recognize them anywhere. He let out a hoarse laugh. “DECIDED TO SHOW UP AFTER ALL, HUH? YOU SURE TOOK YOUR SWEET TIME! WHAT, YOU GET HELD UP IN TRAFFIC WHILE I WAS STUCK ROTTING IN HERE?!”

“I was waiting for you to calm down,” the Axolotl said.

Bill’s eye bulged. “YOU WERE– YOU COULD HEAR ME?!? YOU MEAN THIS WHOLE TIME YOU WERE– YOU COULD’VE– AND YOU JUST–?!?” His dumbfounded stuttering slowly turned to broiling rage. “YOU– DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I JUST WENT THROUGH?! YOU WERE JUST FLOATING THERE WATCHING ME WHILE I WENT THROUGH THE TENTH CIRCLE OF HELL RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU?! IS THAT HOW YOU GET YOUR SICK KICKS?!? BECAUSE I CAN DO YOU ONE BETTER IF YOU WANNA SWITCH THE ROLES AROUND, YOU MISERABLE PINK–” his voice cut out halfway through the insult. He grabbed at his face and found it was numb.

“I can come back later if you’re not ready yet.” The Axolotl’s voice was completely flat.

“WHAT–? NO!!! NO NO NO WAIT!!!!!” Bill threw his arms out desperately, trying to grab for them. He didn’t get anywhere close, but they stopped in their tracks anyway, looking back at him.

“I– I’M FINE. I’M CALM. SEE?” He kept his arms raised in surrender to demonstrate. “I’M CALM, I SWEAR. JUST… DON’T LEAVE ME IN HERE AGAIN.”

The Axolotl stared at him with their blank, dopey expression. He kept as still and quiet as he possibly could.

“Alright,” they finally said. “If you’re ready, we can discuss the terms of our contract.”

“YES. TERMS. CONTRACT. I’M READY.” Bill forced himself to sound calm and collected and not at all like he wanted to crush his conversation partner’s big stupid pink head in his clawed hand. The instant their deal was made and he was alive again, this damn amphibian was getting an all-expenses-paid one-way trip to a snow globe full of acid.

“I've had time to think things over," they said. "There is a certain protocol I usually follow here, but these past few months watching you in here have made me think it might not work well for you. So here's how we'll do this. I will grant you a return to life…”

“YES! FANTASTIC. LET’S GET GOING ON THAT, HUH?”

“...but I have some terms that you’ll need to agree to first.”

Bill sighed. He suspected this was coming. No such thing as a free lunch. “LAY ‘EM ON ME.”

“I will return you to life. I will return your body to its original state, exactly as it was when you last had it; no more, no less. All I ask is the promise of one favor in return.”

It wasn’t like he had a choice, but he didn’t risk complaining. “WHICH IS?”

The Axolotl stared placidly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Bill stared back. “SO… WHAT. IT COULD BE ANYTHING? JUST WHATEVER YOU FEEL LIKE?”

“It won’t endanger your life,” the Axolotl said. “And you will be capable of doing it. But beyond that… yes.”

Bill laughed humorlessly. “THIS IS A BIT, RIGHT? THIS IS A JOKE?”

“No, Bill.”

“SO YOU’RE ACTUALLY MAKING ME SIGN A BLANK CHECK HERE. UNDER THREAT OF DEATH.”

“I’m not threatening death.” A hint of annoyance breached the Axolotl’s calm demeanor. “I’m offering you life. A way out of this mess you’ve made. And those are my terms.”

“THE MESS I’VE… ?! YOU’RE PINNING ALL THIS ON ME?!?” Bill exploded. “THIS HAPPENED TO ME! I GOT STABBED IN THE BACK AND MURDERED!! AND I’M STILL WAITING TO HEAR THESE ‘TERMS’, BUD! YOU DON’T GET TO JUST HAND ME A BLANK CONTRACT AND FILL IT OUT LATER, THAT’S NOT FAIR !!”

The Axolotl’s dot eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Of course. ‘Fair’. Just like all the famously clear, mutually beneficial, deeply ‘fair’ deals you’ve made.”

Bill clammed up. He couldn’t go off like this. If the Axolotl decided they were fed up, he knew they wouldn’t stick around. And they might not come back. He had no other choice but to listen to their brain-dead, moralistic lectures and nod his head like he agreed. So, reluctantly, he did.

“I’m offering you one last chance,” the Axolotl continued. “A return to your original, physical body. A chance to start over and make things right. All I ask is one small favor in the future, when I return. If that’s not fair enough for you, I’m happy to leave.”

Bill dragged his hands down his face. If he said what he was really thinking, there was no way he’d ever get out of here. There was no sense dragging this out any longer. He didn’t want to listen to this smug bastard prattle on for one more second. There would be time for revenge later; right now he just wanted out of this place.

He extended a hand. “FINE. DEAL.”

The Axolotl grasped Bill’s hand in a massive pink paw. As the void around them began to fade from black to gray, a thought that had been gnawing at the back of his mind suddenly surfaced. When they’d laid out their deal, the Axolotl had been worryingly specific on one particular detail. “Your original, physical body… no more, no less…”

“HOLD ON,” he said. “WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY–”

“Time to wake up, Bill.”

His vision turned white.

[suzythesilkie]

Chaos gremlin grandma axolotl here to BLESS YOU WITH THE SPRAY Super fun Mermay Design for one of my friend's extended reptilian pantheons inspired by Humblewood.

[trendfag]

sorry but i dont actually think “every loan word has to be pronounced exactly like it is in the language we got it from” is either feasible (languages have different sounds and after a certain point it is reaaaally difficult to learn how to reliably make new distinct sounds that youve never needed to make anymore) nor something you actually believe or else youd be speaking in a french accent half the time

[sharkbitten-sailor]

hi! can you do forsaken x Shark reader or fish reader?

that would be so great if you do it :D

Have a good day!

forsaken survivors x axolotl!reader headcanons .ᐟ

a/n: woah woah are you reading my mind or something anon how did you know i was thinking about shark!reader just now,,,,,, i'm actually saving them for future content, so... *hands you an axolotl!reader* let’s just pretend axolotls count as fish </3 hope this still works for you :,D!

general hcs - you have feathery external gills on your head that twitch whenever you’re startled or excited. - your tail, covered in a soft, flexible membrane, serves as both an extra seat and a weapon. trust me, no one wants to be on the receiving end of that tail when it swings. - your wide, unblinking eyes make your stare suspiciously intense at first, but as people get used to it, there’s almost something innocent about it. even when you’re secretly plotting mischief/ref - despite your poor vision, your hearing is razor-sharp, surpassing everyone else’s in this hellish realm. - you rarely speak, instead letting out tiny squeaks when stressed or overwhelmed. but that's what make you a ninja. get it? image, you randomly appear out of no where behind a survivor and stare right into their soul... - you love napping on soft surfaces, so you have a habit of collecting random items during rounds to make your space (or floor) more 'sleepable'.

elliot - you and elliot are forsaken at the exact same moment. quite literally plummeting from the sky and landing right in his arms. - over time, you two actually get along pretty well! though early on, he’s a bit cautious around you. i mean, who wouldn’t be when faced with someone who stares at you constantly and unblinkingly? - he adores you. not just for how cute you are, but for the way you don’t let the horrors of this hell faze you. whether you realize it or not, you’re his motivation to keep pushing forward. - cooking buddies. for some reason, he thought teaching you how to make meals was a good idea. (rip the kitchen...) - you two never leave the kitchen without at least a dusting of flour or a completely charred sleeve. looks like a food fight just took place rather than an actual attempt at cooking (which isn't far from the truth,,,,) - during rounds, he always tries to leave at least a slice of pizza for you if possible. - he’s protective when you’re together in matches and downright anxious when you’re on your own & gets actual panic attacks when you recklessly dart out of your hiding spot to gather 'supplies' for your space. - afterwards, he scolds you like a tired dad. he doesn’t quite get why you hoard all that stuff, but he lets you keep it anyway. - more than once, he’s caught himself thinking about running his fingers over your feathery gills. it’s not his fault, they just look ridiculously soft… - as for your ‘extra chair’? he only ever sits on it begrudgingly. after a rough match, when he’s too exhausted to drag himself up to his room. - whenever he gets overwhelmed, one way or another, you always appear beside him. whether it’s poking his cheek, squeaking in response to his ranting, or offering the most precious trinkets you’ve found; it never fails to lift his spirits.

chance - upon his arrival, he found you napping beside elliot almost peacefully, if not for the bruises marking both your bodies. - the moment you came into view, they became absolutely fascinated. because weeeeell,,,,, you're a freaking axolotl yourself??? - you were one of the survivors who guided them through their first round... well, sort of. you just grabbed his arm and bolted before chance could even notice the killer is lurking behind. in the end, you kept him safe and unharmed! - afterwards, he went out to find you. not just to thank you, but to understand you better. they had been curious from the very beginning,,, - you two naturally fall into the dynamic of 'yapper x listener.' chance never fails to recount the latest match: great aim, lucky flips, the whole rundown. and you, well… you barely utter a word, but your tiny squeaks speak volumes in response. - if you have no clue how to play poker or monopoly, then congratulations!! you’ve found the perfect 'teacher'. chance will gladly walk you through it, tho not without a bit of playful teasing over how adorable you look falling for his little tricks. - when they’re bored, brace yourself for annoying gills and tail poking. but hey, payback is fair game: you can bite his arm or tail-slap him in the face like the majestic aquatic menace you are. - calls you his lucky charm and jackpot because for some reasons, staying close to you makes their shots land flawlessly. (+ an opportunity to show off lol) - this stupid gambler has somehow decided your stare is both unsettling and endearing. no idea how that works, but whatever... it oddly calms him down after a stressful round anyways. - absolutely adores the way you just plop down next to him in silence. sometimes it's to wrap him up in your “weighted blanket” (aka your tail with its soft membrane). - other times? you're simply using him as a temporary napping spot. - not that he minds tho. If anything, they count it as a small victory. - if anyone questions why he lets you tail-wrap or nap on him, he shrugs. - “it’s a high-roller privilege,” he claims. smugly.

a/n: FUUU finally done! i should’ve posted this sooner, but tumblr sucks and wiped out half of my work,,,, for some reason,,

[tinyfantasminha]

Guest Room Trouble lines

Saw some people doing this with their OCs and thought it would be fun 🥹 (these can be read in any order) also do you like my guest room

check out /mysteryshopstl translations, the tls for the trouble lines were a huge help to guide me on how every character reacts 😭

Heartslabyul:

Vic: I feel a headache coming...

Riddle: I have zero tolerance for anyone who disrespects the rules.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

Vic: I’d be at peace without you, you brat.

Ace: Admit it, you’d be bored without me~

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

Vic: Aaw, stop being such a baby!

Deuce: What did you just call me?!

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

Vic: Wah... I didn't know you could get scary like that.

Trey: Sorry, I lost my temper for a moment. Can we pretend this never happened?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

Vic: Don't talk to me.

Cater: Sorry, sorry~! Your big bro Cay-kun will make it up with you!

Savanaclaw:

V: I don't feel like hearing the demands of an overgrown cat.

Leona: Next time you won't slip out of my claws that easily, Little Mouse.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: It's okay, it's okay! don't worry about it...

Jack: S-sorry, I wasn't looking... you're not hurt, are you?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Hey! Hands off my pocket—what’d you swipe?!

Ruggie: Sheeheehee, prove I took anything, detective.

Octavinelle:

V: DIE.

Azul: Ah, such passion! Shall we channel it into a friendly round of monopoly?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: You’re terrible. I’m glad you’re not my enemy… right?

Jade: Fufu, don't be silly. You're far too entertaining to get rid of.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: H-hey, give back my phone!!

Floyd: Aha, let's see what embarrassing conversations Lil Axolotl has been having~!

Scarabia:

V: I'm so close to losing it...

Kalim: Awesome! but... losing what?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Kyaaaa~ Jamil is mad at meee~!

Jamil: This is not supposed to be fun for you!

Pomefiore:

V: Eeeeek!

Vil: Such wasted beauty on such disgraceful form… We'll have to fix that.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Watch your tone, country boy.

Epel: I ain’t takin’ orders from no high-horse city slicker— yeowch! S-Sorry ma'am...

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Don't you ever give up?!

Rook: Oh la la, your rage is a fiery rose in bloom~! how could I look away?

Ignihyde:

V: Ugh, seems like I can't argue with you...

Ortho: My debate protocol has a 99.8% success rate. Want a rematch?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Nothing personal!

Idia: W-what is this shounen protagonist-level betrayal?!

V: You can get really hard to deal with....

Malleus: And yet, you continue to stand before me. How bold... or how foolish?

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: That wasn't funny!

Lilia: You jump like a startled kitten~

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Huh? I think I hear a mosquito buzzing in my ear...

Sebek: Unbelievable! How insolent can this human be?!

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Are you even listening?

Silver: My apologies... I must have dozed off.

Others:

V: I'm not doing your chores again.

Crowley: Abandoned in my hour of need... by my own beloved student... what a cruel, cruel world, sob sob!

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: P-please sir... just one more day...

Trein: Deadlines exist for a reason. This is your last warning.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: I—I was too anxious to present…

Crewel: Confidence is your most important accessory, puppy.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: I think this weirdo is staring at my legs.

Rollo: I pray the Lord grants you fabric. And shame.

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: You tricked me...

Fellow: No, no, little scholar! I guided you to a unique opportunity!

━ ━ ━ ━ ━ ✽

V: Stop eating all the tuna, you little gremlin! That was our dinner!

Grim: Nyahaha~! Too late, It’s mine now!

[mary-saccharine]

【Mortal Kombat FC + yumeship】 | PART 2

🪷Blood Lagoon🩸

↓ More info here below. ♡

— The ship between Baraka and Pearl is called "Blood Lagoon" (chosed by my mutuals and followers on Twitter and Instagram) ✨️🩸💕 This in reference to "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" where Pearl and her species are partially based of. ☝️

— In Mortal Kombat 1 (I suggest visiting the PART 1 for more context): After running away from the palace, and then staying in Syzoth's home, Pearl heard about the tarkatan colony and decided, guided by her curiosity at first, to visit discretly, seeing the deplorable state everyone was in, she decided to start singing around with her siren chant, causing an affect of relief of the pain symptoms. Baraka had to see where did that mysterious sound came from, it was suspicious, and he found a pink fish-like lady singing outside the nearest lake, who hid immediately under the water after noticing him...but thanks to gentle insistence and some patience, she came out of the water, ensuring that she was no threat.

— After that, they became friends. Pearl was touched with Baraka's backstory, and decided to dedicate her life to bright his and his people's life. She, after all, not only was immune to any illness and wound, she also had a natural charm that made people around comfortable, and had the fore-mentioned ability to relief pain with her singing. Not to mention that she would often take care of the younger ones, and also knew how to treat wounds and other basic medical knowledge.

— She started to fall for him, the feeling each time stronger ever since they met, but she doesn't wanna pressure him, even though her feelings could be reciprocated, and, perhaps they already are. 🩷

— I like to think them as "I'LL PROTECT YOU" and "NO, I'LL PROTECT YOU!!" type djzkzk💕

— In other timelines, the naiadians weren't created in Earthrealm but instead were Outworld's natives: amphibian/fish ladies with ethereal beauty.

—Although during the first games, Pearl was just a background character, a pink dead body, usually. Later, she would appear with her axolotl characterisctics and fast-healing abilities in Deadly Alliance, when her species was properly introduced as well. It's told that they were once free ones, but now they have to hide, for they are treated like exotic possessions rather than persons, they would often be "silenced" because of how dangerous their voices were considered, and then sold to the higher classes as courtesans.

— In the next games she's described as "Mileena's pet", but also considered as a warrior for she was known as "The naiadian that can't be silenced" due her regenerational abilities. She had to fight next to Baraka in multiple ocassions, which made them very close until his death. Later in MK11 they would reunite and refer to each other in very affectionate ways.

— As for her human form in MK1, it doesn't exists, Pearl is what she is, but she can disguise as a human with the right artifacts.

— Also the comic is based on an Ed Edd n Eddy scene, more specifically, the part of the Hanky Panky Hullabalo. ✨️☝️ Just changed a few stuff KZKZKZK, YEAH, HE CALLS HER TADPOLE AND SHE CALLS HIM PORCUPINE, MIND YOUR BUSINESS—

Also, sorry for keep using the term "yumeship" even tho it's just oc x canon, it's just easier that way and oc x canon should be called fc x canon as well, lol

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

List of canon LGBTQIA+ Wings of Fire characters (so far):

Umber - Gay

He has a crush on Qibli in Moon Rising and is confirmed to be Gay by the author, Tui.

Winter - on the Bisexual spectrum

Qibli - on the Bisexual spectrum

Tui stated that the love triangle between Qibli, Winter and Moon could go either way.

This implies that Qibli and Winter like both girls and boys.

Anemone - Sapphic

Tamarin - Sapphic

Anemone is revealed to have a crush on Tamarin within the epilogue of Darkness of Dragons.

Anemone and Tamarin are revealed to be dating each other in a letter within A Guide to the Dragon World as well.

Burnet - Sapphic, implied lesbian (?)

Silverspot - Sapphic, implied lesbian(?)

They're Blue's and Luna's moms.

It's also mentioned that "Burnet and Silverspot ended up loving each other much more than they could ever have loved Admiral." in The Lost Continent.

This could imply that both Burnet and Silverspot are lesbian, although I might possibly be stretching canon by mentioning this.

Sundew - Sapphic

Willow - Sapphic

They're canonically girlfriends, which is revealed and shown within The Poison Jungle.

Jambu - Achillean

Pineapple- Achillean

Jambu and Pineapple are revealed to be boyfriends in a flashback within The Flames of Hope.

Axolotl - Non-binary

They're a scavenger that appeared within The Flames of Hope.

Sage - Non-binary

They're a librarian who is mentioned by Wren within The Flames of Hope.

Snowfox - Sapphic

Snowflake - Sapphic

Tui revealed that Snowfox and Snowflake are in love with each other. They appear within the winglet Runaway.

Violet's Dads - Achillean

Violet - Ivy's friend - is revealed to have two dads within Dragonslayer.

Copperhead - Achillean

He left his family and tribe in order to be with a RainWing, who's Copperhead's boyfriend, within A Guide to the Dragon World.

Snowfall - on the Bisexual spectrum

Lynx - Sapphic

Tui. mentioned that while Snowfall has some chemistry with Sky, Lynx would be a better partner for her.

QUEER DEFINITIONS:

Sapphic - a woman or woman-aligned individual who is attracted to women and/or woman-aligned people.

Achillean - a man or man-aligned individual who is attracted to men and/or man-aligned people.

The Bisexual Spectrum - the spectrum of attraction to more than one gender. This includes Bisexuality, Pansexuality, Polysexuality, Omnisexuality, etc.

Non-binary - individuals whose gender identity does not exclusively fall into the gender classification of (only) "man" or "woman."

Gay - a man or man-aligned individual who is primarily or exclusively attracted to men and/or man-aligned people.

WIKI SOURCES:

https://wingsoffire.fandom.com/wiki/Category:LGBT

https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/LGBTQIA%2B_Wiki

BTW, I'm sorry if I'm incorrect about any information within this ask.

If that's the case, please inform people about in a polite and respectful manner.

Thank you :)

.

[pretzel-box]

Hello, I’m here now. I just wanted to say I like ur works, I think As Above So Below is my favorite series of yours so far.

And also, I wanted to make a request, cuz it was just my birthday and fuck it why not-

So like. Sebastian with an axolotl experiment reader (fem or gn), cuz Urbanshade was like “You know what would be dope? Regeneration powers” and because of all the injuries reader received, because they were big or very frequent, their body couldn’t keep up and so they are smol

(with a hint of possessive/yandere/whatever-the-fuck, maybe?)

may the tumblr deities guide this ask, that it may not be eated by the ask box, thank you for putting up with my annoying, okay bye :3

-🍪

Tags: Slight comedy, reader and wall dweller eat each other?

Words: 1k

Authors note: Happy Late Birthday! I'm sorry for the wait. I combined the ask with another one!

It was a challenge in itself to keep a close eye on you. At least, that’s what Sebastian thought as he glanced at you from the corner of his shop. He leaned against the wall, trying to focus on the file in his lower hand while his other two arms were crossed.

Earlier, you had quietly assured him that you could handle stocking the shelves and organizing the inventory on your own, despite your slightly smaller stature. You had carried heavy boxes from the back without a complaint, determined to prove you were capable.

Sebastian was surprised every time he saw you in action. Your odd regeneration skills were both a blessing and a strange curiosity he had witnessed more times than he cared to count. If it weren’t for your ability to regrow limbs, your most defining trait would be your absolute innocence. You had no sense of self-defense, no instinct to attack. The only time you’d ever react was to bite—though that was just to check if something was food.

Sebastian couldn’t help but admire your resilience, despite everything Urbanshade had put you through. But it also worried him. The world wasn’t kind to creatures like you, and without him there, it was hard to imagine how long you’d last in an actual fight.

His eyes flicked back to you as you struggled with one of the heavier boxes. For a moment, he considered stepping in, but he stopped himself. You were stubborn in your own quiet way, always wanting to prove you could handle things on your own.

Still, the smallness of your form tugged at his protective instincts. He pushed away from the wall, tossing the file onto the counter as he slithered over.

“Here, let me help,” he said, reaching out to lift the box effortlessly with his upper arms. You looked up at him, blinking in mild surprise, but didn’t protest.

“I was doing fine,” you murmured, though your voice lacked any real defiance.

Sebastian smirked. “Sure you were. But there’s no harm in having an extra set of hands—especially when I’ve got three of them.”

You gave a small smile, a soft warmth in your eyes as you watched him set the box onto the shelf. He noticed how you seemed content to let him help, not because you couldn’t handle it, but because you trusted him. That trust was something fragile, something he wasn’t sure he deserved, but he wouldn’t break it.

As you moved to the next box, Sebastian’s mind wandered. He had seen your abilities save you countless times, but each time you regenerated, it chipped away at you. Urbanshade’s relentless experiments had drained your body, and every injury, every regrowth, took more of a toll. He knew you weren’t as strong as you used to be—your small frame was proof of that.

He glanced over at you, your eyes focused on your task. "You know," he started, his tone softer than usual, "you don’t always have to push yourself so hard. I’m here. You don’t have to do everything alone."

You paused, looking up at him again, your wide eyes reflecting a quiet understanding. “I know. But… it’s important to feel useful. To do something.”

Sebastian nodded, respecting your determination. He couldn’t imagine what it was like—to feel so fragile, yet still want to help. His grip tightened on the box he was holding.

“Well, just remember, you don’t have to prove anything to me. You’ve already done more than enough.”

For a moment, there was silence between the two of you, broken only by the soft thud of boxes being set on the shelves. But in that quiet, an unspoken understanding passed between you. You didn’t need to say it, and neither did he—Sebastian would protect you, no matter how much you wanted to prove yourself.

As the last box was finally stacked, Sebastian stood back, arms folded, watching you with a faint smile. “See? Not so bad with a little help, huh?”

You looked at him, offering a rare grin. “Maybe not.”

Just as you finished stacking the last box, a faint noise echoed from the far corner of the shop. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, his body instinctively shifting into a defensive stance.

“You hear that?” he muttered, his voice low.

You nodded, your wide eyes darting in the direction of the sound. Before either of you could react, something small and fast darted out from behind a shelf—a wall dweller, skittering across the floor in its typical, chaotic manner. Its pale skin and spindly limbs flashed in the dim light, catching both you and Sebastian off guard.

The wall dweller moved first, throwing itself on you and biting into your arm like a piece of cheese.

Before Sebastian could move to intercept it, your instincts kicked in. Without thinking, you lunged at the creature, mouth open and teeth bared. In one swift motion, you chomped down on the wall dweller’s arm as well—not to attack, but because it was your way of testing if things were food.

Sebastian’s eyes widened in shock. "Hey, wait—"

The wall dweller let out a startled yelp, wriggling in your grasp, while you blinked in confusion, still holding onto its arm with your sharp little teeth. The creature’s skin tasted strange, and you quickly realized it was, in fact, actually edible.

You immediately released it, stepping back with an apologetic look as the wall dweller scampered away, rubbing its arm and glaring at you. Sebastian couldn’t help but burst into laughter, the tension breaking as he watched the scene unfold.

“Well… that’s one way to defend yourself,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. “Not sure biting’s going to work in every situation, though. But it healed your arm.”

You stood there, blinking up at him, embarrassed but still unsure what else you could’ve done, then you glanced down on your healed limb. “It… wasn’t food,” you murmured quietly.

Sebastian snorted, wiping a tear from his eye. “Yeah, I figured. But maybe next time, let me handle the wall dwellers, alright?”

You nodded, your cheeks warming slightly. Though your instincts had failed this time, Sebastian didn’t seem mad—just amused, and maybe a little impressed.

The wall dweller, still grumbling under its breath, disappeared into a vent, but Sebastian was already back to his usual self, arms crossed and that familiar smirk playing on his lips.

“Nice try, though,” he teased. “At least you gave it something to chew on too.”

[fazfuri]

I was wondering what kind of childhood Deity had.. Like, literally living in Therapism from early age and guided by Axolotl 🤔🤔

Yep i wanna dig out all of his traumatic experiences back then 😈😈

Nothing too specific or vague in his childhood but imagine you're a child living in a hospital for most of your years. Comfortable, but not exactly ideal. No children to play with, the people around you are either criminals or doctors. That was his life.

[legobiwan]

Gravity Falls fic rec list...Part 2.

I should be grading writing right now, but in the spirit of procrastination, I'm going to instead post about my favorite new fics that have emerged in the post-Book of Bill era.

~~~~~~

Gen Fics

A Mariner’s Guide to the Unexplained by mariezies

Another fic that tackles the idea of Stan's criminal past coming back to haunt him as the elder Pines twins take to the sea. What I really like about this fic are Ford's inner monologues and in particular, the way he overthinks his interactions with his brother post-Weirdmaggedon due to the crushing level of guilt he feels. Bonus points for the incredibly adorable cat OC who joins the twins on the Stan o'War II. Incomplete.

We're Still Here by Simplistic_Apricity

What if Stan hadn't knocked Ford through the portal in 1982 and stuck around Gravity Falls instead? A bajillion fics have been written about this concept, but this one takes a slightly different approach as to the fallout from a Bill-possessed Ford attacking his brother as Ford slowly (slowly) comes to terms with what exactly he has wrought in that basement. The characterization and interactions of the twins and Fiddleford are incredibly grounded, avoiding melodrama while still being wildly effective. Incomplete. TWs for violence and medical trauma.

~~~~~~

Billford Fics

Not to sound like a 2013 hipster, but I do want to state that I hopped on this seafaring vessel pre-BoB and am delighted to witness the explosion of works exploring the demented, tortured relationship between these two absolute disasters. I've decided to let my cringe flag fly high and free here, with the caveat that I only indulge in triangle!Bill stories (accept no substitutions), as, let's face it, Ford is a freak (affectionate) and he loves his geometry.

Statement Abnegation by Anonymous

This one probably needs no introduction, but I'd be wholly remiss if I didn't include it on my list. A+ characterization of both Ford and Bill and it fucking nails the landing. Ford is taken prisoner during Weirdmaggedon, but this time Bill's playing for keeps. Complete. TWs for torture, death (temporary), Stockholm syndrome, and explicit sexual content.

apology tour by dolorous

There's something downright wistful about this story, which presents as "crack taken seriously" when Bill chooses Ford to be his keeper/chaperone as part of a Theraprism-mandated apology tour to those he has wronged post-BoB. Ford hates Bill. Ford sometimes doesn't hate Bill. Ford definitely hates Bill. And now they're stuck on the road trip from hell. Complete. Implied past (current/future?) relationship, no sexual content.

Then it becomes, it becomes, it becomes a problem by tempusedaxrerum

Takes place post-Betrayal but (so far) pre-Stanley arriving in Gravity Falls. Bill is determined to drag Ford into opening the Portal, kicking and screaming (limbs optional). Features an incredibly well-developed OC who is battling demons of her own when she has the misfortune of crossing paths with both Bill and Ford on a snowy evening in Oregon. Incomplete. TWs for violence, attempted sexual assault via possession, substance abuse.

Live, Laugh, Lather, Rinse, Repeat by ShibaIntuit

The conceit of this story is absolutely wild. Essentially, Ford eats a cursed piece of pizza and suffers from existential indigestion. The world-building once Ford is in the multiverse is delightful as an older Ford tries to renegotiate his past with a Bill Cipher of thirty years previous. Incomplete. TWs for violence.

as falls gravity so falls gravity falls by underwater_owl

A series of three stories that take a deep dive into Ford's subconscious while exploring the idea of the Axolotl placing Bill under Ford's mental power due to shenanigans you are better off reading about than me explaining here. Bait & Switch is the main narrative, which is a gen work featuring the whole extended Pines family plus Mabel and Dipper's mother, while Because & Despite and Cause & Effect explore the intense psychosexual relationship between Ford and Bill before and during the events of Bait & Switch. These last two stories really dig into the nature of Ford's deepest and darkest desires and the utterly twisted relationship between Ford and Bill. Incomplete. TWs for explicit sexual content (read the tags on those two last stories, folks! This author isn't, or is, I suppose, fucking around).

Snakes in the Garden by Miss_Ginger_Bread

Another Jimmy Snakes story! Because both Pines twins have terrible taste in men/demonic entities. A ghost from Stan's past shows up in Norway, prompting Ford to take matters into his own hands. Lovely interactions between the Pines twins, including a murderous, protective Ford and a Ford who is harboring a gigantic, triangle-shaped secret from his brother. Incomplete. TWs for abusive relationships.

[millenianthemums]

Chapter 2 of Mabel’s Guide to the Power of Friendship is here!!! CW for bugs, injuries and a dog attack. and for Bill being miserable. i might be having too much fun bullying him

Ao3 link here

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Chapter index

When Bill’s senses returned, it was like being knocked over by a tsunami. A thousand physical sensations slammed into his brain all at once. Way too much information for his mind to process. For a moment his awareness was totally blank as his frantic synapses tried to sort through all the new stimuli they were being hit with. When his mind returned, he realized he was kneeling on dry grass, gasping for air like he’d just been drowning.

He squeezed his eye shut, already overwhelmed by the sudden brightness. Everything hurt. Every joint and muscle creaked like a rusty hinge when he tried to move. It was like he’d been holding one stiff pose for ages. There was a sharp spike of a headache growing behind his eye, and a nauseating pain deep inside the core of his body. A churning emptiness. It took him a moment to recognize it, and another to push through the denial and accept that he knew what it was. Hunger. He was deeply, painfully hungry.

He opened his eye, trying to tamp down the sudden rush of horror. It had been a trillion years since the last time he’d been this kind of hungry. Not hungry in an “I could go for a snack” way; hungry in an “if I don’t eat something I will actually die” way. He’d been right to find the Axolotl’s wording suspicious. He’d been too eager to make the deal and leave that dark place; he didn’t read between the lines. And now he had his body back… but that was just it. He had his body, his weak, fleshy physical form he’d started his life with, and everything that came with it.

Very slowly, he raised up a hand. The joints inside it creaked painfully as he bent the fingers one by one, then pressed the thumb and pointer together. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to know for sure, but he didn’t have a choice. Fire, he thought, focusing as hard as he could. Make fire.

He snapped.

Nothing.

“GOD DAMN IT,” he said. The voice that struggled out of his throat was downright embarrassing to hear. It was a weak, crackling groan, the sound of vocal cords that had long since gotten used to never moving, and now suddenly had to function again.

Reluctantly, he looked himself over, examining his hands and the small bit of his front that he could see. He didn’t look that different than he’d made himself look during Weirdmaggeddon, but there were differences. His gold bricks had a bit less luster, for one. The leathery skin on his hands and arms was less soft, the small sharp claws less well-maintained. And, of course, he was basically flat. This body had been adjusted to be able to exist in a 3D space, but it hadn’t been upgraded at all. It was every bit as underwhelming as his vague memories of it suggested. His hat and bow tie remained, at least, reduced to plain black cloth again.

A sudden memory shot through his head. He grabbed his hat and turned it over frantically, looking inside, rifling a hand through the inner lining. Panic tugged at his chest, growing stronger and stronger as his fingers met with nothing, until finally he felt it. With a shaking hand, he retrieved the object, holding it carefully over the brim of the hat, unwilling to risk it falling into the grass. The tiny round speck was barely even visible in his hand, and he couldn’t make it levitate to get a better look. He risked holding it just a tiny bit higher above the hat to let the light catch it. A beam of sun danced through its surface and it gleamed just the way he remembered. Still there. It’s still there.

He let out a long, heavy sigh of relief as he returned the speck to its hiding place in the lining of his hat. Then he coughed. His throat was unbearably dry. He needed to drink something soon, or this whole situation would be over before it started. He definitely didn’t remember how long it took a shape to die of thirst, but he didn’t have any desire to learn through experience. And he shuddered to imagine the embarrassment of ending up back in that blank void so soon. The Axolotl waiting with that smug little smile on their face. “So? How’d it go?”

Or worse, no one waiting at all. Just him alone in the void, no more chances left.

He placed his hat back securely on his head and staggered to his feet. What would be around here to drink? Water? Sap? Squirrel blood? Water should be easy. He just had to find some water.

It took a while to get a handle on walking again. After countless eons spent floating around weightlessly, he’d often forget he even had legs, much less how to use them. Once he could keep a steady rhythm without wobbling too much, he allowed himself a closer look at his surroundings. Pine and birch trees towered around the forest clearing, blotting out all but a few narrow rays of golden light. It looked like the sun was low in the sky. That was probably bad news, but at least it wasn’t as bright as it could be; his eye was already aching bad enough. Through a gap in the canopy, he caught a glimpse of heavy clouds hanging overhead, all lit up orange and purple. This hopelessly boring planet’s sad attempt at putting on a show.

He sighed. He could do so much better than this. If he was still in charge, those clouds would be writhing tumorous blobs strobing in every color on the visible light spectrum, with a few of those imperceptible ones that cause mania thrown in for flavor. Hell, make ‘em rain wasps while we’re at it. He could go on and on… his creative vision was wasted on this world.

He was getting sidetracked. He tore his eye away from the sky and returned to scanning his surroundings. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but unfortunately, he had a pretty good guess. All these trees looked irritatingly familiar.

His hunch only grew stronger as he headed deeper into the woods. Catching sight of a particularly large birch tree in his path, he instinctively tried to look through one of its eye-shaped markings for a glimpse above the canopy. All he got for the effort was a stab of pain in his head and a sinking feeling in his gut. He’d forgotten for a second. He just had the one eye now.

Bill tried to stamp out the twinge of fear that tugged at his brain with that thought. Everything was fine. This “no powers” thing was a roadblock, a deeply annoying, humiliating setback and a very dirty trick from the Axolotl’s side of things, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He could live with it. In a very literal sense, it was why he was alive right now. And it wouldn’t be forever. The source of his powers resided in the Nightmare Realm; once he got back there, this whole mess would be a funny memory. So he wasn’t going to freak out about it.

He kept trudging down the narrow, overgrown path between the trees. He tried not to think about how his legs were already starting to hurt. Between this and the dual aches in his head and stomach, he was quickly realizing that pain was a lot less funny when it was happening to a body he lived in.

It was fine. It would just take some adjusting, that’s all. Sure, he’d spent a trillion years using his innate magic for literally everything, but he’d been mortal once before, and he’d spent plenty of time possessing mortal bodies. He just had to relearn some habits, and soon he’d be used to this. It would be like riding a bike. Nonstop. Forever.

He walked faster, trying to ignore his screaming muscles. Every part of this body seemed to be screaming, in fact, for some kind of fuel or maintenance he couldn’t provide right now. He didn’t think about it, though. He didn’t think about how he didn’t actually know where he was going, or how long he had until this body gave out, or if there was actually any water around that he stood a snowball’s chance in Hell at finding before he died again and ended up stuck in that void forever…

He slapped both hands across his face. “STOP IT,” he snarled. “STOP FREAKING OUT. IT’S A FOREST. THERE’S BIRDS AND SQUIRRELS AND ORANGUTANS OR WHATEVER OREGON HAS. THERE HAS TO BE WATER SOMEWHERE, OR ALL THE ORANGUTANS WOULD BE DEAD. YOU JUST NEED TO FIND IT. YOU’RE NOT GONNA FIND IT IF YOU JUST STAND HERE PANICKING AND TALKING TO YOURSELF, SO JUST SHUT UP AND WALK.” Chastised, he sighed roughly and started walking again.

It took about ten minutes for the pep talk to start wearing off. There was still no sign of anything other than trees, and some of them were starting to look distressingly similar. There was no way he was walking in a circle, right? That wasn’t a real thing people did without being ensnared by a fae creature, was it?

He picked up the pace again, eye darting around frantically, Was it getting dark already? It was definitely darker than before. How long did the sun take to set on Earth, again? It took like three days during Weirdmageddon, but he stopped time, didn’t he? He really ought to know this, with how long he’d spent spying on and possessing things on Earth. But throughout all those countless eons, he was always just popping in and out whenever, letting months or years pass in between tiny little check-ins. When was the last time he’d spent a full day on Earth? It had been at least decades, and even when he was sticking around for long stretches, it wasn’t like he was keeping track of the position of the sun all day, he’d had more important stuff on his mind! Maybe he could remember if he tried hard enough… but how trustworthy was his memory now, really? His consciousness, once a font of pure, infinite, unconstrained psychic energy, had all just been stuffed inside an oozing hunk of meat inside his head. Which was something he should definitely not be thinking about right now, he reminded himself. This was no time to panic. He needed to lock in on the present moment, the present task, he needed to focus on his immediate surroundings…

His foot missed the ground.

For the next several seconds, all he could process was a blur of spinning lights, pain, and crashing noises. Then he regained the ability to parse his surroundings, and realized he’d just rolled down a steep hill that had been hidden in shrubs and bramble right up until he’d stepped off it. He had left a trail of torn-up dirt and ruined foliage from where his sharp angles had slammed into the earth. The hill had gotten its payback, though. The few golden scales that hadn’t been caked with dirt were scraped half to hell, along with a million little cuts and scrapes on his arms and legs all leaking silvery blood, and his body hurt worse than ever. All his bones (he gagged at the reminder that he had bones now, and probably not even cool ones, not that he could check) felt like they’d been put through a hydraulic press. How had pain ever been funny? This was a nightmare. He put a hand to his head, trying to prevent a stress headache on top of everything else, and his heart dropped ten feet when he realized his hat was gone.

His vision went black with terror for an instant, then blinked back in when he saw it lying on a patch of gravel ahead of him. He lunged forward, snatched it up, and rooted frantically through the lining again until his fingers brushed the tiny, precious speck still hidden inside. His heart started up again and he slammed the hat back on his head, securing it as tightly as possible. Whatever happened, he wasn’t letting it fall off again.

While he was at it, he brushed himself off a bit and readjusted his bow tie. Sure, things weren’t going great right now, but he still had his dignity, damn it.

Once that was dealt with, he took a second to actually look around. With a start, he realized the gravel his hat had landed on was actually a shore. In the chaos and panic of falling, he hadn’t even noticed the sound of water, but sure enough, he was standing on the edge of a rushing creek. Finally, something was going his way! He wasn’t wild about the idea of drinking creek water, but he’d take it over dying of dehydration.

He scurried forward and dunked his hands into the water, scooping greedy handfuls into his eye/mouth. Soon the rasping pain in his throat had faded. In fact, it was shocking how much better he felt. Even mentally. He was calmer, less panicky, and his train of thought was no longer hitting a penny on the tracks and exploding every few feet. He realized it had been a crazy long time since he’d had water. He drank other things all the time, but almost never water. He’d always been more of a martini guy, and after the fifth time he’d set the bar on fire out of boredom, the Henchmaniacs had stopped asking him to be the designated driver.

Anyway, water was better than he remembered. It was crisp and cool, and it tasted like…

He paused, remembered some of the things that lived in creeks, and decided not to think about what it tasted like. He also decided he was good on water for now.

So that was one problem solved. He was still hungry, but he could hold out a bit longer, and his brain was refueled and running smoothly. It was time for step two: revenge.

First things first: obviously he had to get as far away from Oregon as possible. Those flat-brained yokels in Gravity Falls would definitely not take kindly to seeing him again, and there was no way they’d see a golden one-eyed triangle walking around and not assume it was the same one who turned them into furniture once. They were stupid, but no one was that stupid.

He began trudging along the shore of the creek as he ruminated. He vaguely remembered something about water usually leading to civilization? Maybe? This would definitely lead somewhere, anyway. All paths lead somewhere. He felt his eye start to crinkle with a smile at how charmingly useless that phrase was. Sounded like something humans would print on a cheap t-shirt to fool themselves into thinking they’re insightful.

Anyway. He needed to find a town. A town other than Gravity Falls, where nobody knew him. Surely the Weirdness Barrier that had trapped him before wouldn’t still hold him if he didn’t have his magic. It was worth trying to leave either way. Once he had a new base of operations, he could start making connections, calling in old favors, looking for a portal he could use. He’d be back in business in no time.

Just as that thought was starting to reassure him, one of the rocks on the shore decided it didn’t feel like staying where it was when he stepped on it. Instead it rocked to one side and rolled into the creek, taking Bill with it. He barely managed to keep his hat from flying off again as he was swept downstream, before managing to sit up in a spray of water, sputtering and shouting ancient curses. Not, like, “summoning plagues of locusts” type curses. Just words a few dead civilizations would’ve censored on TV.

He tried to stand up and climb back onto dry land, only to find that the rocks on the bottom of the creek were perfectly flat and covered in slippery algae. This lesson was drilled in by falling hard on his kneecaps and getting swept several more feet downstream as he struggled to right himself. He had to resort to crawling across the creek bed and grasping at sticks and reeds near the shore to pull himself free of the current. The water was too shallow to properly swim, and he doubted his flat, narrow body would be suited for swimming anyway. Or for any water-related activities other than getting swept away by currents and drowning.

He stumbled onto shore through a mess of weeds and mud. Swaying on his feet, he tried to catch his breath and brush himself off a bit, to at least pretend his last shreds of dignity were still intact. Just as he realized the only thing he was accomplishing was smearing more mud across his bricks with his mud-caked hands, he felt a sharp twinge on his arm and flinched as something buzzed right past his eyeball. Looking up to follow it, he realized his disturbance of the plants had stirred up a cloud of mosquitoes. And it seemed like they’d all just discovered the thing full of blood right below them. Like the world’s lamest zombie hive mind, they all swarmed after him at once.

Bill swatted and clawed at the air with a furious snarl, but it was instantly clear that intimidation wouldn’t work. He backed away from the water, slowly at first, then faster once he realized he was their preferred beverage now. Soon he was full-on running in an effort to lose the little creeps, until they finally seemed to decide he wasn’t worth the trouble and fell back one by one. Slowing to a stop, Bill shouted in victory as he managed to smash the last holdout between his palms. The noise died as he looked up and realized he had no idea where he was.

Now he was considering the locust curses. He only held off because more bugs were the last thing he needed right now.

Leaning against a tree stump, he reassessed his options and tried to ignore how horrible his body felt. Had running always sucked that much? He was gasping for air, and the rhythmic pounding of his heart was almost deafening. He could actually feel the blood rushing through his veins, a constant pressure that only increased the more he thought about it, about all the pulsing, oozing, hideous tubes and growths and fluids inside this meat prison he was trapped inside…

Stop. Stop thinking about it. The creek had been flowing north. He could just keep walking that way, and eventually he’d reach… something. If not the next town, then maybe a road. He could hitch a ride with some random sap and end up in some faraway city, someplace he could lay low for awhile and figure out the next step. There was no point getting further ahead of himself than that just yet. Right now, all he could do was keep walking.

He kept walking. This time making sure to keep a close eye on the ground ahead of him. After a little while passed without further disasters, his mood started to improve again. This really wasn’t that big a deal. He was Bill Cipher. He’d seen horrors no creature on Earth could ever imagine. He’d caused horrors even worse than that. Of all the weird, scary, unsettling situations he’d been in, this little forest stroll didn’t even rank. He could get through this. He’d bounce back in no time, and never have to think about any of this ever again. The sun had almost set by now, but he wasn’t worried. He always did his best work at nighttime.

A low rumble from the clouds above caused his eye to drift up. A quick flash of lightning split the sky. Bill stared and watched as the thunder rolled again and another bright splinter cut through the clouds. He squinted a smile. Earth weather was still boring as hell, but he’d always had a fondness for a good thunderstorm. Might not be great to get caught in one, but surely–

His foot missed the ground again. He fell hard, pain biting deep into his ankle.

“AUGH! WHAT THE– ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” he roared, seeing the gopher hole he’d just stepped into. He tried to pull his ankle in close to inspect it, but just moving it caused another burst of pain. Would he even be able to walk on this?

“THIS KINDA THING NEVER HAPPENED WHEN I COULD FLOAT,” he growled to himself, looking around for a stick to balance with. “ALMOST LIKE WALKING IS A COMPLETELY STUPID, INEFFICIENT WAY TO MOVE OR SOMETHING! ALMOST LIKE I WAS RIGHT TO GET RID OF GRAVITY, BUT DID ANYONE THANK ME? OF COURSE NOT!! ‘NOOO, BILL, WE NEED GRAVITY! IT’S THE RULES, WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT RULES! HELP, I’M FLOATING INTO THE SUN!’ BUNCHA INGRATES! DON’T KNOW WHY I EVEN TRY…”

By this point he’d found a suitable walking stick and was limping forward again, but he was still too mad to stop ranting. “THEY’VE GOT NO IMAGINATION, THAT’S THE PROBLEM. THEY CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE A WORLD THAT’S NOT THE ONE THEY LIVE IN, WITHOUT ALL THEIR PETTY LITTLE PROBLEMS KEEPING THEM DOWN, SO TRY TO ACTUALLY IMPROVE THINGS AND THEY TREAT YOU LIKE A WHAT WAS THAT”

Something had landed on his arm. At first he thought the bugs were back for him, until he noticed the last bit of sunlight reflecting off a droplet of water.

“COME ON,” he groaned, just as the downpour started.

—

Sheets of rain drove up clouds of dust as they struck the parched earth. Bill had been completely soaked within seconds; by now, he was more rainwater than triangle. He raced around as fast as possible with his injured leg, looking for cover. For a moment he tried to shelter under an oak tree, before another lightning bolt lit up the sky and he remembered trees and lightning storms didn’t mix. Luck was clearly not on his side today, and he was not about to tempt fate.

He needed some actual shelter, he thought as he hobbled through the storm with his stupid stick. Last thing he needed after all this was to die of exposure. Forget hitching a ride far away, he’d take any kind of roof at this point. Anywhere enclosed. He’d had more than enough nature for one day.

As night fell, he noticed what looked like lights gleaming through the rain up ahead. Electric lights. He hadn’t been this excited to see a sign of human civilization since 2600 BC.

He raced toward them, and soon the trees fell away around him to reveal the docks on the shore of Lake Gravity Falls. He might have been furious that he hadn’t even made it past the city limits, if he wasn’t laser-focused on the bait shop at the far end of the beach. The lights were on in the living area upstairs, and he thought he saw movement inside, but it didn’t matter. He’d deal with it. It didn’t matter what he had to do or who he had to kill, he was getting in there. He clutched his walking stick and strode forward.

A massive dark shape lunged out of the rain with an unholy roar. Bill shrieked and fell backwards, yelling more extinct swears and brandishing his stick like a sword. Then his eye focused on the thing and he froze. It was a dog. A big shaggy dog, looming over him with a blank expression.

He laughed, harsh and manic. A dog, of all things. This was Gravity Falls, there could be literally anything wandering around in these woods, and he’d just been scared by a dog. One of the least scary animals on the planet. “YOU’RE LOSING IT, BILLY,” he muttered, trying to walk around the stupid thing. But as soon as he took a step, it jumped in his way and let out a deafening bark. Bill started to realize this might actually be a problem. All the noise might alert what’s-his-name, that guy who lived here. Whoever he was, he’d probably remember Bill just fine and be keen for some payback.

“OKAY, BIG GUY, SIMMER DOWN.” Bill stepped forward and waved his hands broadly, trying to shoo the dog away like a cloud of flies. It didn’t have the effect he wanted; if anything, it simmered up, bristling the hair around its neck and shoulders. Bill didn’t have time to wonder if those were its hackles, if that was what “raised hackles” was supposed to mean, before it was growling and baring its teeth.

For a second, Bill had the good sense to be nervous, but then he shook it off. This wasn’t a mountain lion or Fresno nightcrawler or some other bloodthirsty predator, this was a dog. Everything he’d ever heard about dogs went on and on about how loyal and subservient they were. You just had to be firm with them, right?

“THAT’S ENOUGH. BACK OFF!” He jabbed his stick at the dog reproachfully. It flinched back for half a second. Then it was advancing again, angrier than ever. It was snarling and snapping its teeth at him, ears pinned back against its head and almost all its fur raised up like spikes. As it stalked toward him, Bill made another, sharper jab with the stick. It just barked again, even louder and angrier. This was like throwing water on an oil fire, he thought, but now his hackles were raised too. He’d be damned if this mangy thing was going to out-intimidate him . He stomped closer and raised his stick above his head. “ALRIGHT, I WARNED YOU–!”

In a blur of wet hair and fury, the dog lunged at him. Jagged teeth clamped down hard on his arm. Pain ripped all the way through his skeleton and into his brain, and he forgot his pride instantly. He screamed. It was a scream of confusion, fury and fear as much as pain, and those all tripled when he tried to get away and found his arm wouldn’t budge. The dog jerked its head side to side and yanked Bill right off his feet, dragging him across the wet grass. There was no chance of finding a foothold; even throwing all his weight against the dog didn’t do a thing. It just kept shaking him around like it didn’t even know he was alive. Its jaw might as well have been an iron shackle for all his efforts to free himself were getting him. He had dropped the stick in the chaos and lost track of where it landed. He tried to flail around for it, or anything else he could use as a weapon, but between the darkness, the driving rain, and the racket of his own screaming, he couldn’t focus on anything. He tried clawing and punching, but the dog didn’t care. It felt like he wasn’t even breaching its thick fur.

In a last ditch effort to get away, Bill decided to just pull on his trapped arm until it either broke free of the dog or came off. He managed to get pretty far– turned out his arms were incredibly flexible, even without his powers– but then the dog shook its head again and discovered its new favorite toy had a rope attached now. With a few more shakes, it launched Bill off his feet again and sent him sailing through the air, end over end, and the next thing he knew he was snagged in a low tree branch like a poorly flown kite.

Dignity be damned, Bill was glad to be up there once he realized the dog had lost its grip. It was standing with its paws on the tree trunk, barking up at him and wagging its tail as Bill slowly retracted his stretched, shredded arm. With a surge of fury, he realized this wasn’t about self-defense anymore; the dog thought they were playing. It was literally toying with him.

On impulse, he grabbed a pine cone off the branch and launched it at the dog’s face. It flinched back and started snarling at him again, fury renewed. Bill laughed wildly and snarled back. It didn’t matter how angry it got, it couldn’t climb a tree!

Then a swell of rain sent all the trees quavering in the wind, and Bill stumbled and slipped, and before he knew it that goddamn animal was latched onto his ankle, and then he was flat on his back in the mud just barely holding a pair of snapping jaws away from his eyeball, and then…

And then the dog’s head whipped around to look behind it, and then it was bounding away, out beyond the tree line. Bill leapt to his feet to try and run the other way, but his vision went gray as he stood, and he tumbled forward onto his knees. He sucked in heaving, ragged breaths, blinking rain and dog spit out of his eye. Ahead of him, he heard cheerful yapping and a high, affectionate voice. A familiar voice. His eye shot upward.

A few dozen feet away, that murderous, bloodthirsty sadist of an animal was being petted and hugged by a kid. It kept trying to jump up and put its paws on her shoulders and she kept trying to gently push it back down, probably rightly worried it would knock her over and crush the life out of her. As she rubbed her hands through the thick fur on the dog’s neck and behind its ears, she kept trying to brush its muddy paw prints off her sweater. Her bright pink sweater. With a glittery, colorful shooting star emblem on the front.

Bill stopped being able to see anything but red. He lurched to his feet, and in a voice so packed with rage that it creaked at the seams, he snarled “YOU.”

Her head whipped toward him, and the sheer disbelieving terror on her face almost made him feel like himself again. The dog went stiff and bared its teeth as it stepped in front of the kid, trying to herd her away. Bill didn’t care. Not about the dog, not about the pain searing all through his body, not about the deal or the void or any kind of plan. All he could feel was anger.

He staggered toward her. “YOU DID THIS… YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FAMILY, YOU ALL DID THIS TO ME–” he was pointing at her, aiming a clawed finger at the star on her chest, willing a bolt of fire to punch right through it with every cell in his broken body– “BUT YOU DON’T GET TO WIN. YOU DON’T GET TO KILL ME. NOT THIS TIME. YOU TOOK AWAY EVERYTHING I WAS, BUT YOU WON’T– I WON’T–” his vision was swimming with hate. His arm was shaking, his whole body was shaking. He blinked hard and his vision cleared just enough to see her face. It was pale with fear, but there was something else now. Something that sent fury surging through his head so hard that his vision grayed out again. Pity.

He was done talking. With a primal roar, he charged forward.

His ankle turned under his weight. He started falling.

Everything went dark.

[whereispearlescentmoon]

The cold cleanses, slower and more painfully than fire would. That’s good. Pearl wants slow and painful. She wants Scott to feel it. She wants him to tell Cleo about it. She wants them to know.

She steps in to the snow, up to her hips. Her hands rest on top. The first bits that go numb are the finger tips that once brushed up against the others’ when they passed buckets with axolotls between them. Then the fingers that once carefully untangled the flower crown Lizzie had made from Cleo’s hair while they stubbornly refused to cry, sniffling and hurt but stoic. Then the hands that Scott held once as he guided her, led her, and hands that had given him life once, twice. Her feet too, start to chill. Feet that had once been wiped on the carpet outside the front door of the cottage. Legs that had carried her with her dogs to reunite the three of them in that final session.

She sinks further into the snow, sits in it up to her neck. Feels the burn of cold on her back where Cleo had wrapped her arms around her, congratulating her after her dance floor boogey kill. The sting cuts deeply around the place on her upper arm where Scott had squeezed reassuringly before they broke off for the final four fight. It rests finally on her shoulders where she saw as a ghost but could not feel Scott clutch her body one last time before he was killed by the forces that run the games. She can’t feel them now either.

Her communicator buzzes somewhere on the floor. She ignores it. It hasn’t made her feel any better to lose the parts of her that were theirs.

[thirteene42]

since huitzilopotchli did numbers, let's talk about Xolotl, shall we?

'who the fuck is that' you all ask, and I shout back THATS THE FUCKING POINT

the god of DEATH, who guides the SUN through the sky, the loyal emissary to the keeper of bones, the twin to one of the most well-known figures in Mesoamerican culture, Quetzalcoatl, and yet... no one knows who the fuck that is

I've mentioned him to friends before. they'll tell me excitedly how they fought the feathered snake in a game, or read about one in a book. Then they ask me if Xolotl is an axolotl.

So no, Xolotl is a god of death, disfigurement, dogs, and sickness. And he's honestly one of the most forgotten gods we know enough about to talk about.

I watched Onyx Equinox recently, and thought 'it's such a shame he's depicted like that. He has no agency' and

SPOILERS FOR ONYX EQUINOX S1 AHEAD BTW;

of course he doesn't! like always, his brother takes it from him.

Quetzalcoatl loves his brother. There are texts suggesting they could have been so close they could be one person. But Quetzalcoatl is light, and goodness. Powerful, a Tezcatlipoca, once the SUN - and Xolotl just kind of. lives in the land of the dead.

he is overshadowed constantly by his brother, or the gods he's around, anyone who could possibly overshadow him.

he brings to mind that quote off the dsmp (sorry, I know, but it works) "You are a WALKING second-place medal."

he is secondhand. he's a DOG. he'll never be more, not even in media. he doesn't get a spotlight. he's xolotl.

[sea-lanterns]

Omg wait Axolotl!Reader always having that smiling expression like Falin because possible bad eyesight like axolotles. Doesn’t realize what’s going on most of the time but is happy to be there.

More about the Hybrid AU, we’ve the big cats but who mayhaps would be big dogs do you think? I’m thinking Beidou but maybe I’ve been rereading your other fic and have been influenced

Axolotl Reader being visually impaired is actually rlly interesting. She definitely bumps into a lot of things and needs a guide of sorts to help her navigate the area since she can’t see that well…

Speaking of guides. Do you know what animal is great at guiding blind people? DOGS! Transitioning into your next topic about canine genshin women, I can see women like Navia, Clorinde, Yoimiya, etc. all being good guide dogs for Axolotl! Reader and sticking by her side 24/7. These women however, are more so domesticated canine hybrids, so they’re much smaller and tamer compared to the wilder ones…

Speaking of the wilder ones; Miko, Beidou, Rosaria, etc. are much bigger and ravenous compared to the actual dog women. These are the women I can see being canines in the Animal Hybrid AU, but some of them I can see being other species of animal ☺️

[ckret2]

Chapter 23 of human Bill being the Mystery Shack's prisoner is honestly becoming a bigger inconvenience for them than for him, featuring: Bill's ex-girlfriend.

Bill wants to avoid being seen in a human body (humiliating), Mabel wants to know everything about Bill's love life, and Ford and Soos just want to get rid of the safety hazard. And somehow they start here—

—and end up here.

After going through the entire pile of library books on lucid dreaming, Bill found one to recommend to Mabel that had glossy full-color illustrations, simple little meditative exercises, and—most importantly—no information about astral projection. (It was galling enough that her brother had somehow picked up the trick without realizing it; like heck would Bill help Dipper master it unless Bill could think of some way to take advantage of his skill.)

But for himself, Bill elected to follow a slim decades-old guide that advertised full control over your dreams in four weeks or your money back. A frustratingly long wait to master his own dreamscape, but surely Bill could find a way to fend off his execution at least another four weeks. And anyway, Bill was already a dream expert—maybe he could take shortcuts a human couldn't. He'd picked this book for two reasons: it was the shortest of the books Mabel had brought home; and it had Bill's face on the inside cover page, a triangle containing a grayscale human eye. If Bill couldn't trust advice dispensed by his own face, who could he trust?

He flipped to the back of the book, to the section on all the advanced dream tricks the author promised readers could learn once they'd mastered the basics. Telepathically sharing a dream with a lover. Prophetic visions. And of course, astral projection.

He gazed wistfully at the drawing of a body with its humanoid soul floating above it, loosely tethered to its physical shell's belly button by a ghostly cord. When Bill got out, no tether would tie him back to his flesh prison, and the little soul floating free wouldn't look so human.

He hoped it wouldn't, anyway— No. It wouldn't. Surely the Axolotl had only imprisoned him, not altered him... but then, the Ax had strange ideas about mercy.

Well, Bill wasn't getting to those tricks until he mastered the basics. He flipped to the front of the book. Step one of this four-week journey was to establish...

Bill scoffed under his breath. "A dream diary? Seriously?" A primitive travel journal for psychically-stunted creatures who could only peer through the doorway of the mindscape without properly exploring it.

But right now, Bill was one of those creatures. This book was for him, no matter how condescending he thought it was.

He sighed. All right. Dream diary. Fine. Luckily, he'd already assembled all the supplies he needed.

Mabel had spilled out her crayons in front of Bill plenty of times; sometimes she even let him use them. It had taken some careful timing and preparation, but a few days ago he'd grabbed the unloved grey and greenish-yellow crayons—the sharpest in her collection—during a moment she'd left him unsupervised. So that there wouldn't be any gaps in Mabel's meticulously rainbow-ordered crayon box, he'd had to unwrap the crayons, break off the tips and butts, roll out two tubes of Claydough to fill in the gaps, rewrap the false crayons, and stuff them back in the crayon box before Mabel got back. The middles of the crayons were safely spirited away in his hoodie. He was a genius. The humans underestimated him without his powers, but he was the smartest creature in the universe.

Bill was loathe to pull out Ford's Journal 4—he'd entertained some vague fantasy of filling it with the secrets of reality and slipping it somewhere Ford could find it, make him really regret turning his back on Bill's wisdom—but it was good quality paper and it was already in Bill's possession, so he couldn't afford to pass it up.

The lucid dreaming guide recommended keeping the dream diary under his pillow. Considering he was still sleeping on the floor on a couple of stolen couch cushions that he shoved aside as convenient, not likely. If he was supposed to have easy access to it whenever he slept, he couldn't leave it in his usual hidey-hole, either. He pulled the cushion off the window seat, chewed a tiny hole in the seam on the bottom edge, and carefully plucked out the thread to open up a gap along one side where it wouldn't be seen.

He pressed the stuffing out of the way, slid in the journal and crayons, and put the cushion back in place to await his next dream.

As Bill straightened up, he glanced out the attic window—and flinched in surprise.

Just outside, by the trees, was someone he knew. The most beautiful, graceful, desirable person in all the world. Someone he half thought he'd never see again. Bill stared in shock.

And then she turned toward the shack.

Bill ducked out of the window's view. "Heck."

####

"Star girl, we've got trouble." Bill was standing grimly in the kitchen doorway. "My ex is back in Gravity Falls."

Mabel's brain short-circuited so hard that she momentarily lost the ability to see as she processed the revelation that Bill Cipher had a love life. A whole new multiverse of matchmaking possibilities had just opened up. "Your what?!"

Bill pointed upward.

Mabel bolted out of her seat to follow him upstairs.

"Anyway, I assume we're exes," Bill said. "I usually dump people when they die, I'm sure she did the same to me."

Barely listening to him, Mabel gushed, "Bill, you sly dog, you've been holding out on me! I didn't know you dated!" She took his elbow to help keep him from tripping as they headed upstairs. "What's she like? Tell me everything!" Mabel hoped she wasn't evil. She probably was, but Mabel still had her fingers crossed for some sweet alien princess with a taste for bad boys who may yet lure out Bill's tender side.

"Oh—she's a stunner." Bill used his free hand to pantomime a shape that didn't conform to any silhouette Mabel could imagine, "Curves in all the right places... Down for anything..."

Maybe it was that pink Henchmaniac. She had curves. And was also the only one Mabel remembered who looked like a girl. "You must miss her a lot."

Bill grimaced uncertainly and muttered, "I miss what she does to my body, let's leave it at that."

He steered them toward the attic window and heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay, she's still here. Don't let her catch you staring."

Mabel pressed her face to the glass, eager to see who could have won the heart of Bill Cipher, Most Villainous Triangle Ever.

Below, a gigantic veiny eyeball flopped through the air on gnarled bat wings.

Mabel glanced up at Bill skeptically. "The eye-bat?"

"Mm-hm." Bill was biting his lip and gazing at the bat with pained, shiny-eyed yearning. His face reminded reminded her of the time her parents had dressed for a fancy grown-up dinner, and the way her dad looked when her mom came out in a slinky fuchsia cocktail dress.

Well, who was Mabel to judge? Everyone is beautiful to someone. Good for them. "What's her name?"

"Iris." Bill put a hand on Mabel's shoulder. "You've gotta help me."

####

"Hey, Ford? You got a minute?"

Ford looked up as Soos hovered in the door of his study. "I suppose I do now." He swept aside his lunch—his desk was littered with the remains of formerly-undead teriyaki chicken and the cheap wooden chopsticks he'd jabbed through the meat like wooden stakes—and slid the notebook paper with Bill's fowl resurrection spell back into his journal. "What's on your mind?"

Soos stepped fully into the room. "We've got a supernatural problem I was hoping you could help with," he said. "You know those little eye-bat things that hang around the farm? Well, there's a really huge one flying around the shack, and all the tourists are out-of-towners, so they don't know the eye-bats will swoop at your face unless you pretend you're blind? So the big guy keeps attacking the customers. I had to give away all our souvenir sunglasses to let the last tour group escape to their cars."

"A giant eye-bat?" Ford frowned. "How large?"

"Uh..." Soos held his hands apart. "Like a big beach ball? Yeah. One of those novelty oversized beach balls. But not like, so comically large you can't do anything with it. You could definitely still play beach volleyball with it. But you'd have to deflate it to get it through a door."

It sounded like one of Bill's minions. "It's not turning people to stone, is it?"

"No, just swooping at people's faces and being terrifying."

####

Bill watched from the kitchen window as the eye-bat folded in her wings, like a hawk preparing to snatch up a mouse, and dove at a tourist's head. The tourist screamed and ran the other way, chucking her purse at the eye-bat. Bill shouted at the window, "You don't know what you're missing out on, lady!" He dragged his hands down his face, groaning. "Man I wish that was me."

####

Ford nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

It was a welcome distraction. With Fiddleford currently pursuing their best lead to kill Bill, Ford hadn't felt motivated to keep researching long-shot plan B options; but he got antsy without work to do. Maybe dealing with an eye-bat would make him feel useful enough to quiet his nerves. 

Soos heaved a sigh of relief. "Thanks. I've gotta head back up now—there's a tour bus coming and I need to scare the eye-bat off with a broom so they can come in."

As Soos got on the elevator, Mabel bounded off. "Hi Soos. Grunkle Ford! I need your help. You'll never guess who's at the shack: Bill's ex-girlfriend! Whaaat!"

Ford opened his mouth. He shut his mouth. He tried again. "His ex-girlfriend."

Mabel nodded excitedly.

Ford was momentarily stunned silent as he, too, processed the revelation that Bill had a love life; although his reaction had less to do with matchmaking possibilities and more to do with trying to reconcile the eccentric, intellectual, standoffish alien that Ford knew with the concept of romance. "She doesn't happen to be an eye-bat, does she?"

Mabel's face fell. "Did he tell you about his girlfriend before me?"

Once Mabel had explained what she knew about the situation, Ford frowned. "This could be gravely dangerous. One of his 'Henchmaniacs' is a potential ally. If he catches her attention..."

"Actuallyyy," Mabel said, "he's super trying to avoid her."

Ford blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

####

"I can't let her see me like this," Bill told Mabel, pacing across the attic floor. "I'd be a laughing stock! Look at me—stuck in a human body, powers locked away, and hideous!"

"Don't say that," Mabel said reassuringly. "You know I think you make a really beautiful human, right?"

"True, but that's like saying Caesar is delicious for a salad. It still doesn't compare to a hot fudge sundae, does it?" He pointed toward the window. "You have to hide me."

####

"So do you think you can help?" Mabel asked.

Ford reluctantly got to his feet. "I suppose there's not much choice, is there?"

"Wait—" Mabel stood in front of Ford, blocking him with her arms. "You can stay here! I just meant if you know how to make some kind of magic anti-eyeball forcefield or something! You don't have to—you know—talk to Bill..."

It was sweet of her to try to spare him. "Unfortunately, I do. I don't trust his story." Why would Bill drive away a Henchmaniac, ex or not? Maybe this "ex" was actually Bill's enemy—some sort of interdimensional bounty hunter or law enforcement officer hunting for him. Bill was too sly, too opportunistic, too manipulative to throw away a useful ally.

But then, Bill was also vain and arrogant. Once the portal was finished, how fast had he thrown Ford away?

Ford headed toward the elevator, gesturing for Mabel to follow him. "Come on. Let's find out what he's really up to."

Mabel cringed, but followed.

####

Bill's face lit up as Mabel came in from the gift shop with Ford. "Look at you, Shooting Star, you brought reinforcements!" From his position seated cross-legged on the cushionless sofa, Bill gestured grandly at the unoccupied living room chairs, like a lord inviting two guests into his parlor.

"Yeah," Mabel laughed nervously. "Reinforcements. Sure." She took the chair closer to Bill. 

Bill beamed at Ford. "Welcome back to the surface world, Stanford. If I'd thought you were coming up, I'd have made tea."

Ford remained standing. "Cut the chatter, Cipher. Why is your 'girlfriend' back on Earth attacking people? How did she get here? Is she looking for you?"

Bill's eyebrows raised in surprise at the abrupt confrontation; then he slowly leaned back in his seat, his expression cooler. "How should I know? Maybe she never left Earth."

"How? The rest of your thugs were dragged back into the Nightmare Realm when you died."

"So I've been told," Bill said dryly, glancing at Mabel like he trusted her eyewitness testimony over Ford's.

Mabel nodded. "Like they got sucked into a big invisible rainbow tornado!"

Bill spread his hands in exaggerated bafflement. "Then I don't know what to tell you. It's not like I was around to see it. Maybe she was out visiting family when you kicked out my pals."

"Of all the absurd—family? On Earth?" More likely she had been sucked out with the rest, but found her way back to Earth through—what?—a small rift they'd failed to seal that Bill was trying to cover up...? "For once in your life, why don't you give a straight answer?"

"You wouldn't know what to do with a straight answer if I did give it! You walk in looking for a fight and act like I'm the one who picked it." Bill gestured between Ford and Mabel, "You think I can't see you two trying to pull some good cop/bad cop routine?"

Defensively, Mabel said, "I'm not—!"

"I'd be happy to give you straight answers about anything you want, Stanford," Bill said, "but if you're treating this like an interrogation instead of a conversation, then I'm pleading the fifth until my lawyer gets here. And you do not want to meet my lawyer."

Bill had lost the privilege to have "conversations" years ago. But—as much as Ford hated to admit it—starting a fight was a poor way to gather information. "Fine." He forced himself to sit down. He wasn't about to be nice to Bill, but he could at least hate him civilly.

Bill made a gracious, open-handed gesture, as if to say proceed.

Now that Ford had taken a moment to turn over the idea—perhaps Bill wasn't lying about the eye-bat visiting "family." Here were two facts: there were eye-bats in Gravity Falls; and there were much larger eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm who'd been there before the dimensional portal ripped open. Ford hadn't been able to inspect Bill's variety, but... "That's another mystery I've been wondering about. What's the nature of the relationship between your eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm and ours in Gravity Falls?"

"Pfff, come on." With an air of smug intellectual superiority, Bill rolled his eye and said, "You clever little pattern-seeking humans want to find connections everywhere! Who said there's any relationship between them at all?"

"You did," Ford said.

"A few seconds ago," Mabel added.

Bill's smug look disappeared. He considered that. "Hm."

So much for getting straight answers out of Bill. He couldn't go one minute without contradicting his own lies. "Unless you're saying she was 'visiting family' because she is from Gravity Falls? Not one of your Henchmaniacs," Ford suggested. "Just some local eye-bat you mutated and magically enthralled into doing your bidding when you arrived?" Bill wouldn't like that.

And sure enough, Bill laughed harshly. "I'm flattered you think I can woo someone that fast," he said, blithely gliding past Ford's implication that mind control might have been involved, "but no. She came with me from the Nightmare Realm and we've been going out for... I don't know, a century and a half now?"

This information immediately activated the household romantic. Mabel gasped. "What! Bill that's so long! You're basically triple married."

Bill shuddered. "Yeesh, don't say that. It was a casual physical thing! We were seeing each other until we found better options, that's all. She's hot, but not my type."

"You have a type?! What's your type?"

"Don't answer that," Ford said. (Mabel pouted, but didn't argue.) "How is the same species in two places? Are the eye-bats in Gravity Falls descended from the eye-bats in the Nightmare Realm...?" But how would they have gotten in?

"Other way around," Bill corrected. "A few leaked into the Nightmare Realm from Gravity Falls. I wouldn't be so rude as to call them an invasive species, but they've taken really well to the place! I'm proud of the gals."

"But then how did the eye-bats get into the Nightmare Realm before the portal was complete? That's the whole reason you needed the portal—there was no other access."

Bill hesitated—and Ford got the sense that Bill had once again accidentally talked himself into a corner. Then there was some other passage to the Nightmare Realm, and Bill didn't want them to know about it. But what? Where else in Gravity Falls was there an opening to other dimensions?

The answer came to him before Bill had a chance to try to make up one. "The bottomless pit," Ford said. He couldn't believe he'd never made the connection before. "That's it, isn't it. The eye-bats could have fallen through. One of its exits leads to the Nightmare Realm. You said so in my journal."

There was a flash of irritation across Bill's face, and then he was all smiles. "Oh, you finally figured out that code, did you."

"Please, it was a simple substitution cipher. It wouldn't have taken me nearly so long if someone hadn't kept me sleep deprived for weeks."

Bill didn't respond to the jab—but it was clear from the way his mouth twisted that the restraint took an effort. "I'm not making any plans to jump into the bottomless pit, before you get worried." Said like somebody who had definitely considered jumping into the bottomless pit. No wonder he'd been so evasive about his eye-bats' origins. "The odds I'd actually make it back to the Nightmare Realm are way lower than the odds I'd either end up right back here or somewhere worse." 

"'The lady doth protest too much,'" Ford muttered. He'd have to find a way to seal off the pit. "Is that why the eye-bat wasn't sucked out with your other minions? It has some... ancestral, genetic link to this world—?"

"What, do you think the fabric of reality is running DNA tests to see what does and doesn't 'belong' here?" Bill scoffed. "Most universes aren't sentient and yours isn't one of the exceptions. Still, you might be on to something. Most of my guys are built on biological blueprints and laws of physics that aren't compatible with this dimension; I had to use some of my power to 'translate' between their bodies and your universe. That magic connection probably reeled them back into the Nightmare Realm. And the eye-bats were the only ones I didn't do that for."

"Really." Ford's fingers itched to pick up a pen; he wished he'd brought his journal. "If you were supporting them, why did they get sucked back through the rift when you died? Rather than just dying when your power dissipated? Was that some sort of safety measure you left in case—? No, that's not like you." In order to plan for his death, Bill needed to admit he could die. "Is the source of your power in the Nightmare Realm?"

Bill said, "Frankly, I'm taking your word for it that they survived at all. I wasn't exactly around to watch."

"You're dodging the question." Trying to get anything out of Bill was like chasing a dancing ghost while wearing lead boots. "I want an answer."

"Then ask a different question."

"Fine!" Ford had plenty of questions. If Bill wanted another one so badly— "Why did you need the interdimensional portal?"

Bill stared at Ford. "What?"

"The bottomless pit is ancient—and you clearly knew about it. If you already had an opening into Gravity Falls..."

"The pit only goes one way."

"So why didn't you build something on your end of the exit to reverse its direction? You certainly had the time to work out the science! Or—there are thousands of openings from other dimensions into the Nightmare Realm, natural and artificial alike. Why did you never use them?"

Ford had wondered for decades during his travels through the multiverse. He'd told himself he would never know, that Bill's motives were incomprehensible—ineffable like a god's, unintelligible like a madman's. But Stan had asked the same question a few days ago, and Ford hadn't been able to get it out of his head since. "If you had a trillion years to refine your plan, then why did you give me blueprints for a portal that would tear my universe apart, instead of any other design? Why here, why now? Why me?"

He expected some catty quip or a dismissive brush-off. But instead, Bill gave Ford an appraising look. A chill ran up Ford's back. Bill's face was blank now—no trace of the smirk he'd worn while tossing out contradictions and cryptic riddles—but his eyes had the same hard, heavy look he'd worn in the penthouse, talking about "liberating" his dimension. Bill asked, "Do you really want to know?"

It felt like they were back in Ford's dreams, and his fickle, wonderful muse had finally decided to stop teasing, get serious, and tell his student some precious secret. It felt like he was about to get a real answer. Ford did want to know. Of course he did.

"No."

Bill would only lie. Everything he'd ever said about the portal had been a lie.

Disappointment flickered across Bill's face.

Before an uneasy silence had a chance to fully settle over the room, Mabel shifted in her seat. Ford started; she'd gone so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was here. "Grunkle Ford, is that everything we needed to know?" It wasn't like her to sound so timid. "We know she's not looking for Bill, she just—got stuck here last summer. Right?"

Why were they talking? "Right." The eye-bat harassing the tourists. Ford shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "And the eye-bat is from the Nightmare Realm, but it's descended from Gravity Falls' eye-bats—which means it has the same weaknesses as local eye-bats. Right?" He opened his eyes again, directing the question at Bill.

"Oh, now you're interested in what I have to say?"

"Good point; I'm not." Ford stroked his chin. "I have a recipe for an eye-bat repellant spray I learned from Old Lady Sprott, we could use that to keep it away from the shack. I wrote it down in... my first journal..." 

"Ah," Bill said. "You mean the incinerated one." He said it so coolly, like he wasn't the one who incinerated it.

"Actually," Mabel said, "after everything went back to normal, Grunkle Ford's journals got un-incinerated!"

Bill made a poor show of trying not to look surprised. "You don't say."

"Yeah, good as new! They regrew their torn pages and everything," Mabel said. "And... then we kinda chucked them into the bottomless pit."

Bill cracked up, kicking out a foot in mirth. "You what?! You idiots, don't you know you had an invaluable occult encyclopedia in your hands? The second journal alone was the most important human grimoire of the last five hundred years!"

Ford was too irritated to be flattered. What business did Bill have mocking him, thirty seconds ago Bill had thought he was the one who destroyed the journals. Ford snapped, "I didn't want to keep anything you'd tainted."

He was gratified by how fast Bill stopped laughing. "Then burn down your shack and lobotomize your hippocampus," Bill muttered. "Fine! Are we talking about the eye-bat repellant made with gnome wizz?"

Bless this insufferable, all-seeing pest; maybe he was good for one thing. "That's the one! You know the recipe?"

"That's the only ingredient I remember."

Ford mentally retracted the prior blessing. "It's the only ingredient I remember." He sighed. Maybe Old Lady Sprott had taught her son...

Bill said, "But wasn't that was back before you turned into a hermit, when you were still interviewing the human neighbors about the freaks in the woods? All those little interview notebooks—"

"Yes! That's right, I'm sure I kept them somewhere—"

"Filing cabinet under your globe. Second drawer."

Ford shot Bill a dark look.

"You're welcome," Bill said.

The insufferable all-seeing pest didn't need any blessings, he was smug enough already. Ford got to his feet. "Then as soon as I find the recipe, we can chase this eye-bat off and put this whole mess behind us."

"Finally," Bill sighed. "Always a pleasure to work on a project with you, Sixer."

Ford glared at him again; but as he turned to go, his gaze fell on Mabel. Sitting in her chair with her hands under her thighs, with that big-eyed small-mouthed look children got when the adults were talking about something they had no part in but they were paying keen attention to it anyway. Ford winced at himself. "Mabel. I'm sorry that got... a bit heated."

She gave him a small smile. "It's fine—"

"And whose fault was that?" Bill cut in. "I was being perfectly helpful."

Ford swallowed back the urge to retort. 

Mabel didn't. She blew a raspberry at Bill. "When you weren't lying to us?"

"When did I lie! Tell me one lie I told—"

Ford wasn't getting dragged into this. "I think you can handle him from here," he muttered to Mabel. "I've got work to do." He escaped back to the gift shop; but the tension in his shoulders didn't start to loosen until he was back in his study.

####

The door swung shut behind Ford; and Mabel waited a few more seconds before she said, "Sorry about that." She sighed. "I thought Grunkle Ford could think of some way to help. I didn't think he'd actually come and talk about it."

"Not your fault." Bill smiled ruefully. "He was probably looking for an excuse for another confrontation. And to think, for a moment I was excited when my old friend showed up." He sighed deeply. Oh, how poorly he was mistreated—

"What?" Mabel laughed. "What are you talking about? You're not friends—"

"Hey! Shush-shush-shush!" Bill blocked Mabel's words with a hand. "Shooting Star, I'm about to tell you something that'll put you ahead of the competition for the rest of your life. Once you've figured out lucid dreaming, go back to the library—"

"Are you about to give me more homework?"

"I'm giving you more homework. Go look up the law of attraction. Master that, change your life. If you want something to happen, the first step to making it happen is saying it's happened. Say it until you believe it; believe it until it's true. So I don't want to hear any of your negativity, buster."

A thoughtful look crossed Mabel's face as she considered that. She was such an attentive listener once you figured out what caught her attention. Best student Bill had had in eons. She'd go far. "So..." She lowered her voice. "That means you really do want to be friends with Grunkle Ford!"

"That's not what I said. I said we are friends." Bill was sure she'd pick it up. It was an easy game and she was a quick study. "Even if he clearly doesn't know it. Sixer's such a grump these days." He sighed, again. Woe was him—

"He's not that grumpy! Only around you," Mabel said.

"And how is that fair? After everything I did for him—"

"You mean everything you did to him?"

Bill shot her an exasperated look. Mabel's impish grin stretched wider. Bill said, "Whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of truth and tough love!"

"Oh, truth. Truth's a fickle god. Does your version of the 'truth' include all my contributions to his work that he never brings up—"

"Nope, I don't care about what you're saying!" Mabel bounded over from her chair to join Bill on the couch. "We're done talking about your dumb grudge and pretending you're not evil."

"'Pretending'—!"

"There's only one thing I'm interested in!" Mabel leaned into Bill's face. "I wanna know everything about your love life."

"Wh—?" Bill's train of thought veered off track as the conversation swung from Ford back over toward Iris. "I'm flattered by the attention, but don't you think 'everything' is a little personal?"

"Nope!" Mabel got comfortable in her seat. "So have you ever gotten married?"

This was what Bill got for being so open and forthcoming with the personal details while Ford was in the room. He'd wanted to look like he was an open book, and what happened? Now Mabel thought he was an open book. Funny how that worked out. "You don't even know if marriage is a thing where I'm from."

"Is it?"

"Next question."

"Do you want to get married?"

"Next question that isn't about marriage."

"Who do you consider the top ten most attractive people or creatures in Gravity Falls."

It was beginning to dawn on Bill that he was in danger.

####

Soos passed from the gift shop through the living room. (Mabel had put on the Color Critters Valentine's special—Prisma the Rainbow Fairy and Glory Unicorn were explaining to Misty Dolphin why it was important to give a Valentine to all your friends, even the ones you weren't as close to, because it might hurt their feelings to be left out and including everyone might make you a new friend.) Bill was sitting upside down, legs hooked over the back of the sofa and head bright red, as he said, "No, I just don't see relationships as eternal. Romance is a short term commitment. Like a fashion trend, or, or—"

"Like gum?"

Bill snapped his fingers. "Yes! Exactly like gum—"

"Hey dudes." Soos awkwardly squeezed around behind the TV to avoid blocking the screen. He looked at Bill's face and said, "Hey, all the blood's rushing to your head. Be careful, Abuelita says if you do that too long your head could pop."

"She's right," Bill said.

Mabel said, "He's making his face red on purpose so I can't tell when he's blushing."

"Not true! You little tattler!"

As he headed upstairs, Soos heard Mabel say, "So when a romance starts to lose its flavor, you just—" and Bill cut in, "You spit it on the sidewalk, grind it under your heel, and float away without looking back, never thinking about it again..."

A few minutes later, after changing out of his Mr. Mystery suit into a more comfortable question mark t-shirt, Soos headed back downstairs. Bill was still talking, "... and all you get out of it is sickly sweet spit, you're just—swallowing all this sweet spit until it makes your mouth sour and it's dripping out around your eye, and you're hungrier than if you'd never eaten at all, and all your friends say 'oh Bill, you're always griping about your gum, why don't you settle down to eat a proper meal,' and you say 'how about you mind your own business, Kryptos, I don't lecture you about your diet,' and then your other friends accuse you of choosing inedible snacks so you don't have to commit to swallowing them, because they don't get that you're a flawless energy being, you don't need 'nutrition' or 'sustenance,' this is just a hobby to you—and finally you just, you get sick of the taste of gum altogether, you never want to chew gum again as long as you live, it's always so needy and your jaw hurts, and everyone thinks it's your fault if you can't focus on chewing the stupid thing all day every day, like maybe you have a life of your own, did anyone consider that? And at this point you're so disgusted by the very idea of gum that you burn down a gum factory so you don't have to look at their stupid ads! And then an eon later you find yourself craving a stick of gum, so you find a different brand and cram a new one in."

Mabel, who'd been listening to Bill's monologue in wide-eyed stunned silence, finally smiled in relief as he landed on a familiar sentiment. She pumped her fist in the air. "Yeah! Cram a new one in!"

"You get me, kid."

Probably none of Soos's business, but he thought Bill needed to work on his relationship with gum.

He took the elevator down to Ford's study. "Sup, dawg."

"Hm?" Ford was sitting on the floor in front of an open filing cabinet, completely surrounded by skinny reporter's notebooks like the kind Abuelita used for shopping lists, intensely focused on flipping through one. "Soos. Yes?"

"How's the eye-bat problem going?"

"I'm working on it," Ford sighed. "Somewhere I have a recipe to repel eye-bats, but it's been thirty years since I've seen those notes, so..." He shrugged helplessly. "But I'll find it before I go to sleep and we'll deal with the eye-bat tomorrow."

"That'd be great. Thanks, Mr. Pines."

"In return, can I ask you to take care of something?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Could you find a way to block access to the bottomless pit? If Bill gets outside the shack, he could use it to escape to his own dimension."

"Yeah, no problem. I've got the perfect thing for that," Soos said. "Hey, don't stay up all night, okay? I kinda think the eye-bat's attracted to bloodshot eyes."

"That's not the worst thing she's attracted to," Ford muttered. "Thank you, Soos. I won't be too late."

That was, of course, a lie.

####

(Took a week longer than planned, but it was worth it to get this hammered out properly! As always, I DEEPLY appreciate any thoughts, comments, and feedback y'all have—hearing from you guys is what saves me from feeling like I'm just shouting thousands of words into the void. Thanks for reading!)

[wonderingwhereileftreality]

Me: *holding an AU, looking at you*

You: *looking at me*

Me: *looking at you*

You: *looking at me*

Me:...alright fine I'll write something for the "Ford's Fake Son" AU, but I can't guarantee quality or that I'll finish it.

fic under cut (AO3 link here)

“Stanley! Do Something! Stanley!” Ford screamed in terror, throwing the first journal to his brother before the portal swallowed him up entirely. Of course a second later he’d berate himself for doing such a thing.

 ‘Stan didn’t even manage to graduate highschool (because of you), what were you expecting him to do with a third of the portal’s schematics and no clue how to run it? Why would you even want him to run it?! To save you?! You were literally JUST arguing!’ Bluish white light zoomed past the scientist as he felt himself being pulled somewhere, The Nightmare Dimension.

And wasn’t that just the cherry on the cake? On top of his massive sleep deprivation, malnutrition, fighting his brother, branding his brother, and getting sucked into the stupid portal he was tricked into making, now he had to see his ex…his, his ex-muse that is, definitely nothing else, just a muse…

…Okay he might’ve been a bit (a lot) more than that, but it wasn’t exactly a normal relationship now was it? He didn’t exactly want to fuck the triangle (though he wasn’t exactly opposed to it either) or marry him on the coast or whatever nonsense Fiddleford had argued before he left, it was more complicated than that. He just…wanted someone that made him feel normal. Bill made him feel normal.

‘Until he betrayed you.’ Ford’s mind helpfully reminded him. ‘And now you’re going to be in his domain, where he can do anything he wants to you, forever.’

He shuddered at the thought, or at least he would’ve if he’d been able to move in the portal’s pull. In reality, all he could do was just…hope, hope that Bill would be merciful (he wouldn’t), hope that Stan would be able to drag him out (he couldn’t), hope that someone, anyone would please-

“Please…please help me.” The words, barely audible to his own ears, slipped out before he could stop them. A plea and a prayer for anyone, any being merciful enough to take pity on him. ‘Stanley, Fiddleford, Shermie, Ma, Shifty, Frilliam-’

“Hello Ford.” Ford felt the portal’s pull suddenly stop, the bluish white light cut off into an endless void. He blinked and found himself surrounded by stars, a cosmos of pink and green in an inky black space. It was a place where the scientist should’ve been struggling for oxygen, yet for some reason Ford didn’t feel the need to breathe. Amidst it all, a pink axolotl floated before him, larger than any he’d ever seen yet he felt so eerily familiar-

“Frilliam?” The creature seemed to chuckle warmly at his confused greeting.

“Indeed, for a time I did live with you as Frilliam. Quite some time has passed since then, but it still feels like only yesterday.”

“How…how did you get so-” Ford cut himself off, starting to panic all over again. “Oh Moses I killed you didn’t I?! I knew I shouldn’t have just released you into the wild, who knows what could’ve gotten you-”

“Please do not worry, Stanford.” The Axolotl reassured him, his massive leg moving ever so gently pat the mortal’s head. “The axolotl you named ‘Frilliam’ was one of my vessels. After you released him I simply guided him to the closest freshwater source. He has been living well since then.”

Ford breathed a sigh of release. “Oh thank Moses…so then, why are you here?”

“Because you called for help, and in the process, you called for me.”

“I thought ‘Frilliam’ was merely a vessel?”

“Yes, and every one of my vessels is a part of me.” The Axolotl clarified. “Now then, I believe you wish to return home, correct?”

“Well yes I-” Ford stopped himself before he could make his request. “Oh, but I can’t. If I go back, Bill could still activate the portal, he could hurt Stanley, he…”

His shoulders heaved as a sob rippled through them, and Ford found himself curling up into a ball of anxiety and pain. The Axolotl’s touch moved to his back, carefully pulling him closer until Ford was loosely pressed against the otherworldly being. He’d expected the creature to feel wet or slimy, but its skin just felt cool, like a rest on a shady day. His face was wet with tears he couldn’t hold back anymore, he was just so tired.

“I…” Ford continued to sob, even as his energy was starting to peter out. “I just…I just want to rest with, without-”

“Without Bill being a threat?”

“Yeah,” Admitting that made Ford feel so weak, so childish, so small…and yet, it also made him feel as though a weight was lifting off his shoulders.

“Then it shall be done.” He felt something warm wash over him at the Axolotl’s words, and somehow the giant creature appeared to grow larger and larger before him.

“What…?” The voice that came out was different than it should’ve been, younger and higher. Ford looked to his hands and found them smaller, and with far fewer callouses as there should’ve been. His clothes left loose on him as well, the coat that once fit perfectly now almost swallowing him completely with how big it was.

“This form will protect you from Bill’s influence until you’re able to bar him from your dimension completely.” The Axolotl gave the scientist one final pat and a little kiss to the forehead before a familiar white circle appeared before them. “You may return home, Ford. It’s just through that door. Someone precious is waiting for you.”

“Someone precious…oh Moses, Stanley!” Ford uncurled from his position against the Axolotl and started running towards the portal. He stopped just before he could enter, however, and turned back to the otherworldly being. “Thank you, Frilliam, for everything and…even if it was just one of your vessels…I’m sorry for throwing you away.”

“All is forgiven, Stanford.” Its neutral expression never changed, but Ford felt as though the creature was grinning at him. “I’ll see you again another day.”

Ford nodded, then turned and ran through the portal.

===

Ford found himself stepping into a familiar lab, the portal closing again behind him. It didn’t look as though anything had changed from when he’d left, how long had he been gone? It could’ve been days, weeks, months, years-

“I just got him back! I can’t lose him again!”

‘Stanley’s still here!’

His brother is still here, and more importantly he’s trying to move the level to start the portal up again. Normally that’d be very bad, but Ford knows it won’t work anyways: it looks like the portal caused a small explosion, which would’ve rattled the parts inside in a way that’d be difficult to fix without any proper knowledge. Plus the lack of machinery noise and flashing lights indicated that the portal had drained its powersource…and probably whatever power was left in the house.

‘I really should start paying my electric bill again, the emergency generator will only help so much.’

“STANFORD!” Oh right, Stanley’s still freaking out. It doesn’t look like it’s been more than a few minutes since Ford left, so for now he should probably try to calm his brother down.

“Stan-” The now younger man was cut off by a sudden wave of dizziness, causing him to stumble where he stood. What was going on-

‘Wait…when was the last time I slept again?’

*CRASH*