#multidimensional chess

[marlinspirkhall]

This is actually much simpler than I anticipated, but I'm furious to learn that I should have been saying "Spock moved the attack board" in fics this whole time.

[animentality]

some comments on 5d chess with multidimensional travel tutorial videos that took me out.

[elodieunderglass]

does killie ever make his own clothes? I know he has zero imagination but he also likes to be dapper and can't buy off the rack so maybe it would force his hand? is derek crafty enough to help him / make clothes for him?

I love that everyone looks at Killie and goes, that little fuck needs a fibercraft hobby. I find this surprising! What is it about his having zero imagination that makes us want to see him sew? Much to ponder.

We did have fun as a joke rotating him in the Great British Sewing Bee but I don’t think he did very well, even if a sewing machine is a horse. And he might take up unnecessarily aggressive quilting in retirement in a sort of multidimensional chess battle with his enemies and rivals in the quaint Cotswold village of his retirement.

He definitely outsources a lot of emotional labour to his tailor. He does not mind paying a professional for their expertise, and mostly lacks the vocabulary to describe what he wants, from colour palettes (he seems to be a Deep Autumn??) to the precise degree of sluttiness of his waistcoats (somehow managing to have them be sluttier as part of a layered outfit than his completely see-through white base layers that genuinely do show nipple.) so what exactly would make him try his own?

I think ultimately it’s more fun and interesting to ask “what would MAKE a character do this” than to say he wouldn’t. I cannot imagine him being good at it or doing it willingly BUT it would be fun to force him into a position where he had to try.

I don’t see Derek as especially crafty but he probably has more of the qualities of someone who takes pleasure in it, where with Killie everything would be this FIGHT FOR HIS LIFE. Again, what would make him do it?

Maybe some kind of costumes…?

[ckret2]

Chapter 24 of human Bill Cipher being the Mystery Shack's extremely inconvenient prisoner, featuring: the Pines figuring out a way to chase off Bill's ex-girlfriend... who happens to be a giant eyeball with bat wings.

It kinda goes like this.

(A head's up before we get going: this chapter is a bit more mature than prior ones, so I feel like a warning's in order. There's no sex, and nothing here is erotic or sexy (unless you, too, happen to be attracted to eye-bats), BUT there IS some academic speculation on the logistics of alien sex, and some very filthy-sounding dialogue describing acts that, to humans, aren't sexual at all. Plus some dirty humor and toilet humor. And nothing here is what I'd call billford quite yet, considering Ford still very much hates Bill's guts—but like, he's definitely a little too obsessed with the anatomy of triangles for it to be normal. If any of this is too spicy for you, skip this chapter and come back next one. We'll be starting a new "episode" then.)

####

It was past midnight. In his search for the eye-bat repellant recipe, Ford had flipped through every notebook he'd used during his initial interviews of the residents of Gravity Falls, flipped through them a second time, torn apart half his bookshelves looking for any reporter's notebooks he might have accidentally sorted in with his larger binders, and now he was exhausted, frustrated—and, worst of all, bored out of his mind.

Which made it hard to avoid thinking about more interesting topics.

And for the last hour he'd been unwillingly plagued with the question of how an eyeball and a triangle had a "casual physical thing." 

If that didn't mean sex—and you never knew with aliens—then it was still something close enough to fill the same social/recreational niche. It certainly meant sex on the eye-bat's side, Ford had fully documented the reproductive cycle of eye-bats, that was sorted out—but triangles?

It had to be something that would work in the second dimension. Ford had visited a two-dimensional universe populated by geometric shapes, he knew roughly how their bodies functioned: a shape's perimeter was its external surface—its "skin"—and its internal organs were inside that perimeter. So if Bill was still configured the way he had been in his home dimension, any external reproductive anatomy would have to be somewhere on his perimeter, right? Maybe at one of his corners? Or camouflaged where the seams of his brick pattern reached his edges?

But then if Bill were a normal two-dimensional person, he'd have his eye on the edge of his body, not right in the center of his "internal organs." So he'd been rearranged to some extent. Who knew how the rest of his body worked now? His top hat contained flesh and a skeletal structure; maybe it was a removable reproductive organ that could be passed to a partner, like some cephalopods' detachable tentacles—

Ford flinched as he realized Bill was staring at him.

To aid in his anatomical speculation, Ford had drawn a diagram of Bill in his journal and labeled various points on the triangle that might be concealing reproductive anatomy. He quickly scratched out the drawing's staring eye and slammed his journal shut. 

He'd happily gone thirty years assuming that Bill had no sex life—Bill was an energy being who presented himself as a floating featureless triangle, his hobbies involved cheating at chess and discussing multidimensional transportation, he probably wasn't designed for "physical things," and if he was designed for it then surely he wasn't interested. Ford was not pleased to have his assumptions disputed.

Because the thing was—Ford knew more than any living human about the mating rituals of unicorns, werewolf/mermaid couples, stomach-faced ducks, and tentacled warrior piglets. (Did he ever know about tentacled warrior piglets.) He had the only photos of a gnome mating ball, which he didn't need, because that horrible sight would be forever seared into his long-term memory. He knew the names of twenty obscene acts in siren sign language, and knew how to use his extra fingers to make them extra obscene. This wasn't unfamiliar territory to him. He was curious about how strange, supernatural creatures functioned; and those functions included how the reproductive drive influenced their behaviors; and a living triangle that had escaped from the second dimension was certainly a strange supernatural creature.

But, unfortunately, it was also Bill Cipher. And Ford did not want to think about what Bill did in bed. ... Assuming he used a bed. Really, at this point the only thing Ford knew was that Bill's only admitted partner was capable of flight. Maybe he just hovered while he—

Ford slammed his journal shut again to stop himself from scribbling down more theories, then stuffed the journal in a desk drawer for good measure. Did normal people think like this? He had no idea. He didn't even know who he could ask.

Enough of this. Back to searching for that eye-bat repellant recipe, and this time he wasn't stopping until he found it.

####

Like a vast eye in an upside-down triangle, the circular center of the portal lit up so bright blue it was almost white. The four energy vents glowed in sympathy. A rainbow constellation lit up in twirling patterns around the central light.

Bill watched with bated breath, a second-dimensional shadow waiting for his door to the third dimension to open. The cavern walls shook; the ground quaked and rumbled ominously; Bill didn't care. The portal was stable, the lab was somebody else's problem, and Bill had a party to get to.

The steel beams supporting the cavern rolled like a wave, and Bill's stomach roiled with them. They weren't supposed to be able to move like that. But he knew what he was doing, the portal was stable, he was not here to destroy this world, he'd come here to save it, whether it wanted to be saved or not—

The whole world undulated. Bedrock and steel were not built to undulate. Bill bobbed on the energy wave like a toy boat on a choppy sea; but the steel shattered, rock crumbled, shrapnel and rubble sprayed out. There was a peal of deafening thunder as the world below him cracked apart.

####

Bill woke with a gasp.

Oh. Right. Dreams.

Dream diary. With a groan, he sat up, checked to make sure no humans were coming by in the next few minutes, and pulled his stolen journal out of its hiding place.

The guide on lucid dreaming had recommended writing down his dreams in full, vivid, rich detail—any people or scenes or events, anything he could detect with his five (?) senses, as much as he could recall.

He drew a portal—gray inverted triangle with a center circle, four circles around the triangle, all five circles filled in yellow green—and then a yellow green line trailing out of the portal's side that grew progressively wigglier like a seismogram. He labeled his doodle, "this." He'd remember the rest.

After a moment of thought, he wrote, "Don't remember if I was a human or a shape. My organs were doing things a shape's shouldn't." (He wrote "human" as 人; there was no translation for the word in the language Bill wrote in. The two angled strokes stood out in Bill's rows of Morse-like dots and dashes.) "Being around so many humans who are CONVINCED I'm trying to destroy their world must be getting to me. Sixer pitched another hissy-fit about the portal yesterday. Enduring all that negative talk can't be healthy for me. I know I'm just helping their boring little planet, but maybe their accusations are getting lodged in this stupid brain's subconscious."

Maybe he should meditate a bit—go think positive thoughts, drown out the mortal voices that insisted they knew his plans better than he did. He'd had enough dreaming for one night, anyway.

Beneath the note to himself, Bill added in English: "Everything would have been fine if you'd just let me finish, Fordsy." If the humans ever did find this journal, Bill was determined to get the last word in.

Then he stowed away the stolen journal and shuffled downstairs.

He wondered how much was left of Ford's portal.

####

Old man bladder. Stan dragged himself out of bed. The other guest room bed was empty. Stan hoped Ford was sleeping in his study—he'd mentioned once he kept a cot down there. Better than pulling another all nighter studying alien sorcery or whatever.

He skipped his glasses, groped his way to the downstairs bathroom, and, yawning, lined up with the toilet.

The toilet said, "Pretty forward of you, Stanley."

Stan screamed.

He stumbled backwards out of the bathroom and hit the wall. Bill flipped on the light and leaned out to grin at him. "Careful! You're due for a broken hip any day now."

"BILL! What are DOING!"

"Trying not to get urinated on."

"Jsh—shut up!" It had dawned on Stan that if he could hear Bill without his hearing aids, then half the house probably could too. He hoped no one had overheard that. "Why are you sitting on the toilet in the dark!"

"It's a free country, Stanley Pines."

Stan raised a fist. "GET OUT!"

Bill bolted from the bathroom like a scared rabbit, then caught himself, rolled his eyes, and raised his hands over his head in mock surrender. "You could have asked nicely!"

Pointing at Bill as he retreated, Stan added, "And stop being so darn creepy! Lurking in the dark and sneaking around silently all the time, like a... some kind of—burglar ninja assassin!"

Bill turned to shout back, "What, do you expect me to make a peace cry every time I walk around? Make sure I can't sneak up and stab you in the back?"

Stan had caught about half of that. "YEAH, smart guy! It might help!"

Bill flung his hands out in defeat as he rounded the corner.

Stan finished his business, went back to bed, and glared angrily at the ceiling another ten minutes.

####

It had taken half the night, but at last Ford had disassembled the filing cabinet and found a few notebooks that had gotten stuck behind the bottom drawer, including the one with Old Lady Sprott's eye-bat repellant recipe. Ford copied it down, left a list of ingredients on the gift shop cash register for Soos, and finally dragged himself into the house to sleep.

And paused in the entryway.

Bill was sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window; Ford had seen him like this before. Usually, he could make himself walk by.

But he couldn't tonight. Maybe it was yesterday's conversation still weighing on his mind, the loose ends they hadn't tied up tangling around his throat. "What are you doing up?"

Bill's voice was inappropriately calm: "Dying."

Ford's guard went up. "Do you... Literally or metaphorically?"

"Literally," Bill said. "Hey—how many decades do you think this body's got? Probably not even a century, right?"

Ford's guard went down. Just moping. But it was an interesting question, one he'd put some thought into himself—what age had Bill's body been made at? How had his body been made that age? How long would the body last? Ford had wondered whether studying Bill's freshly-made-but-already-adult body might reveal anything medically useful about how aging affected the human body; but the odds of convincing Bill to participate in any medical studies—much less finding someone to conduct the study who believed their story—were nonexistent.

Ford said, "At a loose guess, I'd put you around... fifty, maybe? A very spry fifty." Bill's hair was a shockingly vivid gold, not a hint of gray, and when he was in a good mood Bill bounced about with an enviable lack of joint pain; but Ford had seen faint, delicate creases around his mouth and eyes that spoke to age. And the look in his eyes... Ford hated the phrase "old soul"—he'd been called that by some of his school teachers, and it only made him feel the distance between himself and his age peers all the more strongly—but with Bill, it was uncannily fitting. His eyes aged his whole face.

"You think this thing looks fifty? Wow." Bill took a deep drink from a cider can. "Shooting Star's best guess was half that. Thanks for shoving me twenty-five years closer to the grave."

Half that? When Ford had been a child, he'd had a harder time guessing adults' ages, and he supposed Mabel might be the same; but it was difficult to mistake a 50-year-old for a 25-year-old. Maybe there was something else going on. He'd have to ask her later. "With exercise, a healthy diet, and a little luck, you could still live another fifty." Ford nodded at the two empty cider cans already sitting on the table. "With your current drinking habits, I'll give you five."

Bill cackled—loudly enough to make Ford tense up, afraid someone would catch them talking. "Cheers!" Bill finished off the can and slammed it down with the others. "Ugh. Finite lifespans. Awful."

"Welcome to being human," Ford said dryly.

"'Welcome to death row,'" Bill said. "Ha! What'm I doing, worrying about decades. Let's be real, I don't even need to worry about the next five years. If I haven't found a way out of this body before then..."

Bill left the thought unfinished. An uneasy weight formed low in Ford's stomach.

"Ah, whatever. Like you'd let me live that long. Right, Sixer?" Bill pushed himself up unsteadily, keeping his balance first with a hand on the back of the chair, and then on Ford's (suddenly very tense) shoulder as he passed him. "I'm going back to sleep before that last can kicks in."

The way Bill was walking, Ford wasn't sure he'd make it up the stairs. "Why don't you sleep on the folding bed in the living room?"

"No window," Bill said. "I've g—" (He stumbled on the stairs.) "I've gotta see the stars."

Of course he did. When Bill said it that way, it was so obvious Ford didn't know why he hadn't realized that himself. Where else could Bill sleep but as close to the sky as possible?

Ford listened as Bill stumbled his way upstairs, creaked across the floorboards, and collapsed onto his makeshift bed.

Ford had thirty years left. Exactly thirty years. Don't have a heart attack, you're not ninety-two yet! Ninety-two was a good, old age. Older than his father had been. But thirty years felt too soon. And yet it felt fitting, somehow, for his life to be divided so neatly in thirds.

If Bill lived another fifty years in this body, and Ford lived thirty, who would stand guard over him? Would he and Stan have to pass that burden on to their gniece and gnephew? Or to Soos and Melody?

Why was he wondering—what made him think they wouldn't find a way to kill Bill before then? What made him think he wouldn't kill Bill before the end of this very summer?

What made him so sure Bill hadn't been lying about when Ford would die? Thirty years felt too soon; but ninety-two felt flatteringly optimistic.

Ford sighed, and picked up the cider cans to recycle.

He wondered whether Bill—hiding from his ex, fretting about death, sleeping on his enemies' floor—regretted how he'd spent his life.

####

Bill's second entry in his dream diary started, "Wet dream about Iris."

He filled most of a page with an extremely graphic summary before he sighed in frustration, stowed the journal away, and stared at the ceiling as dawn crept in. Well. Terrific. He was pretty intimately familiar with how humans coupled, but he didn't have much practice with the solo act. Plus the humans would give him heck if they caught him at it. He'd just have to suffer.

So here he was, all riled up and nowhere to go.

Who else could he make miserable?

####

Stan was startled awake by a heavy pounding on his door.

"Heeey Fisherman!" Somehow, Bill's voice was even more grating at dawn. He rattled the door several more times. "Just passing by! Wanted to let you know! Here I am! Right here!"

Did that demon ever sleep? And, follow up question, could Stan knock him out for a few hours?

Ford—who must have come up after Stan went back to bed—groaned and muttered something.

Ford wasn't nearly as loud as Bill. Stan reluctantly sat up and put a hearing aid in. "What?"

"What the devil is he up to now."

"No idea," Stan lied. "Go yell at him about it, he listens to you."

Ford sighed, but got up and left the room.

A minute later, Stan heard Bill exclaim, "I can't win with you people!"

He smirked.

####

The kitchen reeked that morning. When Stan came in for breakfast, the window was open, a fan in the entryway futilely directed fresh air into the kitchen and a fan on the kitchen table directed the noxious fumes outside, there were bags of groceries on the counter—he noticed hot sauce, peppers, cheap perfume, and an entire bag of raw onions—and Ford was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of vile-smelling brown liquid. The moment he saw Stan, Ford put him to work stirring the pot so Ford could start dicing onions.

While they worked, Ford explained the situation with the eye-bat harassing the tourists and the solution he'd hit on to drive it away. Soos had collected the necessary ingredients this morning, but couldn't help cook because he was busy finding a way to block the bottomless pit—

####

Outside, Soos scooted a trampoline up to the pit, carefully lined it up with the edge—the trampoline and the pit had nearly the same diameter—and shoved it in. It plummeted into the dark. After a short wait, Soos chucked a baseball down the pit. It disappeared, then bounced back up.

Soos pumped his fist triumphantly. "Aced it."

####

—so, Ford was working on the repellant, and in the interest of public safety and the greater good he was drafting Stan into helping too.

Which Stan supposed he couldn't argue with, but considering the smell he would've preferred dicing the onions. "Is all this really necessary for one eye-bat? I usually just swat 'em off with a tennis racket."

"This eye-bat happens to be large enough to carry off a first-grader," Ford said. "And Bill claims it's his ex-girlfriend, so I don't want to risk them meeting."

"Huh." Weird thing to date, but then Stan didn't know what he did expect a triangle demon to date. "Somehow I figured he was tangled up in this."

Ford laughed ruefully.

After a moment of chopping and stirring, Ford said, "Speaking of Bill—he claims that you ordered him to announce his presence? And that you tried to pee on him."

"I did not and he's a dirty liar! He made the whole thing up!" Stan didn't expect Ford to believe him. Stan also didn't expect Ford to believe Bill. Ford knew they were both liars. What Stan expected was for Ford to side with the person he liked best.

"Uh huh." Ford didn't question Stan further. Ha. Pines solidarity.

Even though he'd already won, Stan went on: "All I did was mention how quiet he is! I can never tell where he's lurking. Sometimes I almost forget he's here." In Stan's mind, Bill had been rapidly demoted  from "active existential threat" to "annoying houseguest who blends in with the shadows." Watching him help Mabel cut pretty pictures from fashion magazines with plastic safety scissors drained away most of his intimidation factor.

Ford gave Stan a funny look. "Really? I can't forget he's here for a second. Sometimes I swear I can tell where he's been in the house—like a cold spot left by a ghost."

Stan tried to figure out how to ask whether that was a reaction to decades on the run feeling like hunted prey—which Stan knew how to cope with—or a lingering magical side effect of Ford and Bill's alien possession deal—which Stan did not. Then Ford added, "It's probably because I hear him bumping into the furniture all the time."

"Oh. Yeah. That's probably it. You've got better hearing than me." Case closed. Stan turned back to the stove—

A deafening buzz made them both start. Stan splashed boiling brown stink across the stovetop. "What—!"

Standing in the doorway with a kazoo, Bill said, "How's that, Stanley? Do you like that better?!"

"YOU!" Stan flung the stirring spoon to the floor.

Bill bolted from the room with Stan in hot pursuit. "Whoa! Mercy! Truce! You can have the kazoo! It's not even mine, I'm just holding it for a fr— Ow ow OW ow—"

Stan hauled Bill in by the back of the neck and didn't let go until he was in the middle of the kitchen. He pointed at the spoon, then pointed at the pot. "Pick it up. Get stirring." He grabbed another knife and joined Ford chopping onions. Whew, what a relief.

Bill gave Stan a perplexed look, but picked up the spoon, gave the pot an experimental sniff, and got stirring. He didn't even wince at the smell. "Is this the gnome wizz? What is this, punishment for not letting you use me as a urinal?"

"Whatsamatter, I thought you were the one who thinks pee belongs in the kitchen."

"You're both too old for toilet humor," Ford snapped. "Bill, this problem is your fault, the least you can do is help prepare the spray, and you're not getting a knife, so you're on pot stirring duty. Deal with it."

Bill rolled his eyes dramatically. (At the moment, they were both uncovered; but one was already half squinted shut against the morning light.) "Fine, but only because I like hanging out with you."

Ford scoffed.

"And I don't see how this is my fault just because we happened to date. It's not like I invited her over," Bill went on. "If anything, you should be grateful she's my ex, or else I wouldn't be helping you chase her away—"

"Hey, that's what I wanna know about this," Stan said. He gestured toward the window; the ex in question was currently circling above the gift shop entrance, like a vulture waiting for something to die. "Exactly how do you 'date' an eye-bat? Just—how does that work?"

"Well, it depends on the eye-bat, doesn't it," Bill said, a touch patronizing. "They don't all have the same tastes, you know. But she happens to like art films and water parks. Easy date."

"I'm not talking about that! You're telling us you slept with an eyeball with bat wings—right? That's what we're talking about, right?" From the corner of his eye, Stan saw Ford giving him a sharp look, but he didn't tell Stan to stop. Yeah, the nerd was curious, too.

"Yes, Stanley." Bill's condescension was almost more overpowering than the kitchen's stench. "That's what we're talking about. I 'slept' with an eyeball with bat wings." He exaggerated the finger quotes around the euphemism. "Any more prying you want to do into my personal life, or...?"

"You look at that freak out there and think it's appealing?"

Bill stopped stirring and squinted out the window. Flatly, he said, "Yep. She's still drop dead gorgeous. Thanks for asking." 

"How do you even know that's a she! How can you tell a girl eye from a boy eye?"

Ford said, "Technically, Stanley, all eye-bats are female." He held up an onion and used his knife tip to gesture at it like it was a model eyeball, "They're parthenogenetic parasites that reproduce by attacking other species' faces and depositing egg-bearing spores on their eyeballs, which swim to the tear ducts to begin incubating. Over the next few weeks, the infected eyeball grows wings and develops its own nervous system while the host slowly goes blind in one eye, until the new eye-bat is mature enough to emerge from the host's socket and seek out her mother's colony—"

Bill let out a strangled scream. "Enough!"

Stan and Ford stared at him.

"Would you stop talking about eye-bat sex?! I'm already riled up! I don't need help making it worse!"

He slammed the stirring spoon down and started pacing. "I'm losing my mind. Do you know what it's like to be randy for something you don't have the right body for?!" He gave them a pleading, slightly crazed look. "I need to feel her pupil contracting against mine. I'd lick her hot, salty tears off her sclera. I'd bite deep enough to taste her retina. I want to look like I've got pinkeye from all the bat spores coating my face. I'd give my right eye just to have one of her wings fingering my eyelid again—but if I cave and go that far I know I'd lose my head and give her the left one too, and then I've screwed up, because STUPID HUMANS BODIES can't regrow their STUPID EYEBALLS—"

He kicked the wall so hard he lost his balance and stumbled back into the stove. "Ow. I'm going insane. I can't take it. I need to kill somebody. I need to set something on fire."

Stan and Ford were petrified. Stan's jaw had dropped.

Bill was panting from the exertion of his outburst, arms trembling, face flushed. His shoulders slumped. The picture of a broken man, he said, "I'd do anything to rim her optic nerve again."

Ford let out a strangled noise.

Bill took several deep breaths. He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry! Wow. That was... I think the fumes are getting to me." He shook his head. "The fumes and the hormones. Human hormones. You know, your species has very insistent..." He gestured vaguely toward the doorway. "I'm—think I should lay down."

Stan and Ford nodded. Bill trudged from the room. A few seconds later, Stan heard springs creak as Bill flopped his full weight on the living room sofa.

Stan and Ford exchanged a look. Stan said, "I shouldn't have asked about..."

"You shouldn't have asked."

"You should have skipped the science lesson."

"I should have."

They lapsed into silence. After a moment, Ford stood up to take over stirring the pot.

Stan resumed chopping onions. "Say, d'you think he staged all that to get out of stirring?"

Ford didn't reply.

"Sixer?" Stan glanced up.

Ford had turned away from the stove, and was staring at nothing with a faraway, troubled look. It was the look he got when he'd just latched on to some mystery that would haunt him until he solved it.

"Ford—?"

Ford slapped down the spoon and stomped into the living room. "But you hate losing your eyeball! So how did you two— I mean—! The spores—?"

"Incompatible biology." Bill's voice sounded muffled. "It's why we never got serious. She wants kids and my tear ducts can't incubate wings."

"Ah! Of course. That makes perfect sense." Ford returned to the stove with a look of triumph.

Stan didn't know how Ford had recovered from that fast enough to ask follow-up questions. Weird nerd. Stan shook his head but said nothing.

####

In Ford's journal, he scratched out most of his speculation about the anatomy of Bill's species, scribbled over the diagram, and added, "I severely underestimated how much his eye is involved."

####

At one point, during Weirdmageddon, when Bill had been torturing Ford for information, Ford had spat in his eye. Bill had licked it off. He'd seemed eerily undisturbed.

Ford would probably wonder how Bill had interpreted that act for the rest of his life.

####

Outside, dressed in a homemade hazmat suit consisting of painter's coveralls and a scuba mask, Soos faced off against the eye-bat, a spray bottle strapped to each hip like a cowboy's revolvers. Dipper and Mabel stood behind him, armed with a rake and a golf club, wearing a bicycle helmet and a football helmet with tree branches taped on. The eye-bat stared them down warily.

Leaning on his elbows over the kitchen table so he could stare out the window, Bill said, "Bet you a hundred bucks she steals Questiony's hat."

Stan snorted. "I'm not taking that bet. You don't have any money."

Bill grunted and turned back to the window, just in time to see the eye-bat dive for Soos's face. Soos whipped out one of the spray bottles, dropped it, ducked down to retrieve it just as she swooped past where his head used to be, and lifted it in time to spray the eye-bat when she circled back to attack him again. She reeled off screeching, eye watering, pupil contracting. Bill winced in sympathy. Poor gal. And she didn't even have an eyelid for protection. But, hey—better for her to suffer than for Bill to risk getting caught in this body. He'd take someone else's pain over his own embarrassment any day.

"It seems to be working the same as it does on any other eye-bat," Ford said. "Good. Once she's gone, Soos and the kids can spray the rest on the roof. That should drive her off while keeping the worst of the scent away from the tourists."

Streaming tears, the eye-bat dove at the kids. They yelled in alarm. Dipper threw his rake at her and missed. Bill flipped up his eyepatch to squint at the battle with both eyes.

"What, do you see something?" Stan asked.

"Just appreciating her sphericality." Bill sighed wistfully. "That spray's gotta be excruciatingly painful—but, I've never seen her that wet before. Sure, we've fooled around with a little hot sauce a few times, but even then—"

"I'm sorry I asked."

Outside, Soos shouted, "Hey! My hat! Give that back!"

Bill wordlessly held a hand out toward Stan.

Stan smacked it away. "Nyeh."

As the eye-bat retreated toward the forest, Ford sighed in relief. "She's gone. It worked."

"You sound surprised," Bill said.

"Frankly, I can't believe that you gave us accurate information on how to get rid of her."

"What! You wound me! Why would I lie about that?"

"To trick us into doing something that strengthens her? To arrange an opportunity to meet her?" Ford suggested. "After all, as one of your Henchmaniacs, she could have helped you escape."

Bill's blood ran cold.

She could have helped him escape. SHE COULD HAVE HELPED HIM ESCAPE! He'd been so worried about not looking stupid or losing his eyes, when all this time—! He could have signaled Iris from the window, and—and the bottomless pit was right there, she could have carried a message to the gang—at the very least, she could probably open doors for him—and instead he just—when he could have—

He watched in despair as Iris's pretty little optic nerve vanished behind the trees.

No, Bill decided—no, getting her help was a terrible plan. If it was a good plan, he would have done it; so it was terrible. He had a better plan. What was his better plan?

"Come on, you think I need her? I've got all the pals I need right here—whether you're ready to admit it or not." He elbowed Ford. Bill had decided he'd wheedle Ford back over to his side, and he would. His survival depended on it. Now more than ever. "I've got a way out, don't worry about that—it's only a matter of time—and she's not part of the plan."

Ford scoffed. "Really. Last night you were moaning about being on death row."

"Wh—Hey! That was..." Not fair. He scrambled to revise his story.

"You're lying about something," Ford said. "If it wasn't how to get rid of her, then it was why you wanted to get rid of her. For all we know, maybe she wants you dead as much as we do."

"Yeah," Stan said, "the 'girlfriend' story sounds crazy enough to be true, but you seem like the kind of guy who has a string of exes who'd love to kill you." (He did, as it happened, but it wasn't his fault he kept falling for petty jealous psychos who hated seeing him thrive.)

Ford said, "If she hadn't been a danger to the tourists, perhaps I should have invited her in to talk."

Unbelievable. Even when Bill did exactly what he was supposed to, he was still the bad guy. "Fine, she was a notorious black widow and you saved my life, happy? Do you like that story better? I made it up just for you." He jabbed a finger in Ford's shoulder. "You know what your problem is? You're too paranoid. You can't trust anything anybody says. You'll only hurt yourself like that—"

Ford shoved Bill's hand away and stepped out of poking range. "I spent years unlearning the paranoia you gave me. And when I finished, do you know what I figured out, Bill? All along, there was only one person I shouldn't have trusted: you."

It stung, but only in a distant, impersonal way; like a hard slap on a numb cheek. Bill turned to give Ford a sour look. "At the lengths you take it to, I could tell you the sky is blue and you'd have to check."

Ford's gaze automatically flickered toward the window.

"Ha!" Bill angrily shoved the table against the wall as he stood up. "Thanks for taking care of my pest problem, boys." He stormed upstairs, flipping his hood up as he went. Ingrates.

####

The view out the attic window was more interesting than usual, mainly because there were three humans traipsing around on the roof spraying eye-bat repellant. From time to time Mabel came by to make funny faces at Bill through the glass; he did his best to one-up them. Once, Soos nearly fell off the roof and died; Bill hadn't laughed that hard since he was murdered.

Their return indoors was heralded by Mabel shouting, "Dibs on the shower!" and Dipper replying, "I take shorter showers, let me go first!" They pounded up the stairs. Mabel tried to take them two at a time, tripped near the top, and by the time she recovered Dipper was already in the bathroom. She groaned. "Augh! Not fair! I don't want to smell like onions and gnome pee!"

"Neither do I! I need it more, I haven't showered in two weeks!"

Bill wondered why Dipper got to go so long between showers without getting dumped in a cold tub in his sleep. (He knew why.)

Bill whistled to catch Mabel's attention. "Consolation prize." He waved a cheap perfume bottle toward Mabel. "We had leftovers after mixing the repellant. It smells like strawberry candy."

"You're my hero." Mabel took the bottle and sprayed it all over herself, in her hair, and under her sweater. "You need a shower too, you know."

"Sure, but until Dolores fumigates the kitchen I'll just blend into the background stink. I can put it off til tomorrow without anyone complaining."

"You're grossss." Mabel emphasized the hiss by poking Bill's arm. "Once I'm clean, I'm not talking to you until you've showered too."

"I'll be devastated."

"Those are my terms!" She kicked aside Bill's cushion-bed so she could sit under the window without stinking the cushions up, and settled back to wait for the bathroom. After a (very short) companionable silence, Mabel said, "It's too bad we had to chase off your ex. I can see why you like her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Can you?"

"Iris was so graceful!" Mabel said. "And murderous, but mostly graceful. Like an evil swan."

Bill laughed. "Yeah! Yeah, she is. Floats like a dream. If you think she's graceful in the air, you oughta see her in the pool. She's the only person I know who can make a cannonball look elegant."

Mabel gave him a sly grin.

"What?"

"Look at you. Yooou still like heeer." Mabel propped her elbows on the edge of the window seat and balanced her chin in her hands. "How did you meet Iris?"

For the last couple of days, almost everyone in the house had talked about Bill's ex like she was some kind of malevolent creature, rather than a person. He was used to outsiders talking about his friends that way—heck, most of his friends were malevolent creatures—but it grated all the same. (He missed home.) Just hearing Mabel call Iris by her name was a breath of fresh air. No one else had even asked if she had a name.

"I met her at a party," Bill said. "I'd just gotten a piano and was showing off, and she came by to ask about Earth music. She wasn't in my crew then—but the party was open invite, and everyone in that corner of the Nightmare Realm knew that if you wanted info on Earth, you came to Bill Cipher. So, we talked about waltzes and tarantellas, I played a little Beethoven, we hit things off..."

They talked until the bathroom was free and Mabel went to shower. Sweet kid. Hopeless romantic, though.

When Bill got out of this place, he was gonna find the first boy who would break her heart and kill him before they could meet. It was the least he could do for her.

####

The third entry in Bill's dream diary: "Shooting Star's cartoon is getting to me. I dreamed about the wolf and the cat arguing over who had to host someone's birthday party. The wolf refused to let guests into his enormous mansion, but the cat's house was burning down. They asked me how to resolve this. I told them the cat should execute the wolf as punishment for his inhospitality, take over his mansion, and wear his skin as the party host. The animals were so in awe of my wisdom that I was deified as god of the jungle."

That was not what he'd dreamed. The animals were so horrified at his suggestion that they'd tied him to a stake and forced him to watch as they threw the cat into the flames of her own house. He couldn't remember whether he'd dreamed that he was a triangle or a human.

He preferred his version. Once he'd regained control over his dreams, he could replay this one and make it end properly.

He'd get the hang of this in no time.

####

(You're legally required to tell me if you had a reaction to this one. Even if it's horror. Especially if it's horror.)

[raven-with-a-pocketwatch]

Kabru is playing 5d chess with multidimensional time travel and meanwhile Laois is putting checkers pieces in his sandwich

[thevalleyisjolly]

no vacant stares (no time for me)

"Enough with the games," she said. "You are the rebel agent known as Axis. For years, you have coordinated an underground network to steal top-secret Imperial technology, provoke insurrection, and undermine the stability of the Empire. Do you deny it?" Dedra uncovers the rebel agent known as Axis.

Just in time before Arc 4 airs! I've been thinking about Dedra and Luthen as character mirrors for a while, so it was fun to write a hypothetical confrontation between the two (alternative title: Spy vs. Spy).

Featuring the interoffice politics of the ISB, Dedra and Luthen playing multidimensional psychological chess as only two sunless manipulators can, Supervisor Heert having a really bad time in general and forever, a bit of cathartic revenge, and the versatility of Kleya's eye-shadow palette.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Geopolitical conflicts, you say. Okay, okay, maybe I should chuck it back onto the to-watch list. The costumes ARE pretty baller.

THAT’S THE WHOLE THING (and the costumes are so fucking good you have no idea)

It’s the journey of one chosen one (and posse of friends and lovers) who is fated to be the chess piece the cosmic forces of creation and destruction are fighting over and has to save and destroy the world.

This involves either seizing or being handed because fate reasons the control of like. More than half the kingdoms and nations and political institutions on the continent over the entire series. The entire thing is largely a geopolitical conflict that layers into the cosmic magic war noted previously, all leading to the inevitable apocalyptic battle fated to end their age and turn the wheel of time towards the next age.

The big players start getting introduced in season one and two and season three is all about one of the power players: the aiel, a warrior society comprised of a bunch of feuding clans in the desert and yes. A lot of the plot this season does resemble dune, but complicated with way more weird multidimensional fantasy stuff.

The other most important power player right now consists of the aes sedai of the White Tower in tar valon (Avalon), an ancient religious order/mage society comprised only of nearly ageless women (because men who use magic eventually go insane and kill everyone around them) who are all scheming amongst and against each other all the time.

Invading from off the shores of the continent are the seanchan, an empire started by an army who sailed away from the main continent a thousand years before, now determined to seize the continent anew and win the last battle on their terms.

Also important are the borderlands, which fight to protect the border with the shadow blighted lands, and Andor, a massive queendom with an incredibly powerful ruling family, and the white cloaks, who are basically an analogue for the Spanish Inquisition who exist in opposition to the White Tower and believe all aes sedai are dangerous and blasphemous for channeling the One Power by which male channelers broke the world 3000 years before.

And that’s literally only like what has been introduced so far, we’re only on book 4 out of 14.

Also Rosamund Pikes plays the hot wizard mentor figure.

[dark-elf-writes]

Nie Huaisang VS Octavian FIGHT!

Nuclear Bomb vs Coughing Baby but the coughing baby is 100% sure he’s going to win.

Octavian wasn’t even smart enough to steal a weapon in the middle of his own murder attempt after leaving the murder weapon in the victim like I need you to understand that Nie Huaisang will drag his ass to hell and back without him even knowing what’s happening. Nie Huaisang is playing 4-D multidimensional chess with time travel while Octavian hasn’t mastered tic-tac-toe. Octavian thinks he’s fighting someone else entirely in fact.

All this to say Huaisang gets Xichen elected as praetor just in time for the demigod civil war and no one other than him has the faintest idea how this happened.

[angry-glasses]

Klein vs Amon is some multidimensional chess bullshit, and also competing to see who can eat the other's pieces faster

[beauty-and-passion]

hey hi i'm coming by again because yes i have more thoughts about exwhylia and euclydia actually i'm mostly here to show you a video!

it's a video called "I Made a 1D Game" by the channel Mashpoe, i think you'll find it interesting!

Thanks for the suggestion! I knew about some 4D games (like 4D toys) and 5D games like chess (which is mindblowing and mindboggling at the same time), but didn't know about a 1D game. It looks awesome and I am very grateful you suggested it!

In turn, I would like to suggest a video too: it's called "Simulating Biology in Other Dimensions" from Curious Archive and it doesn't just mention these 4D and 5D games, but also the 1D game you told me about and other pieces of media that explore more dimensions and how to convey them to the eye (and the mind) or 3D beings like us.

This stuff is cool and awesome, so if anyone has more suggestions, please reblog and add them, we need more multidimensional experiments! Personally, I am still trying to wrap my mind around the actual, full geometry of a 4D shape and not just the "faces" it can show in our 3D world, but it's as hard (and fun) as you can imagine.

[thefireiscentral]

rant by diane di prima . read after it was mentioned in Let This Radicalize You

You cannot write a single line w/out a cosmology

a cosmogony

laid out, before all eyes

there is no part of yourself you can separate out

saying, this is memory, this is sensation

this is the work I care about, this is how I

make a living

it is whole, it is a whole, it always was whole

you do not "make" it so

there is nothing to integrate, you are a presence

you are an appendage of the work, the work stems from

hangs from the heaven you create

every man / every woman carries a firmament inside

& the stars in it are not the stars in the sky

w/out imagination there is no memory

w/out imagination there is no sensation

w/out imagination there is no will, desire

history is a living weapon in yr hand

& you have imagined it, it is thus that you

"find out for yourself"

history is the dream of what it can be, it is

the relation between things in a continuum

of imagination

what you find out for yourself is what you select

out of an infinite sea of possibility

no one can inhabit yr world

yet it is not lonely,

the ground of the imagination is fearlessness

discourse is video tape of a movie of a shadow play

but the puppets are in yr hand

your counters in a multidimensional chess

which is divination

& strategy

the war that matters is the war against the imagination

all other wars are subsumned in it.

the ultimate famine is the starvation

of the imagination

it is death to be sure, but the undead

seek to inhabit someone else's world

the ultimate claustrophobia is the syllogism

the ultimate claustrophobia is "it all adds up"

nothing adds up & nothing stands in for

anything else

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST

THE IMAGINATION

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST

THE IMAGINATION

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST

THE IMAGINATION

ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT

There is no way out of the spiritual battle

There is no way to avoid taking sides

There is no way you can not have a poetics

no matter what you do: plumber, baker, teacher

you do it in the consciousness of making

or not making yr world

you have a poetics: you step into the world

like a suit of readymade clothes

or you etch in light

your firmament spills into the shape of your room

the shape of the poem, of yr body, of yr loves

A woman's life / a man's life is an allegory

Dig it

There is no way out of the spiritual battle

the war is the war against the imagination

you can't sign up as a conscientious objector

the war of the worlds hangs here, right now, in the balance

it is a war for this world, to keep it

a vale of soul-making

the taste in all our mouths is the taste of our power

and it is bitter as death

bring yr self home to yrself, enter the garden

the guy at the gate w/ the flaming sword is yrself

the war is the war for the human imagination

and no one can fight it but you/ & no one can fight it for you

The imagination is not only holy, it is precise

it is not only fierce, it is practical

men die everyday for the lack of it,

it is vast & elegant

intellectus means "light of the mind"

it is not discourse it is not even language

the inner sun

the polis is constellated around the sun

the fire is central

[random-xpressions]

Who here loves to play chess? I just stumbled upon this dialogue from the web series Mr Robot (Season 2) and it left me fascinated:

"There over 9 million different possible positions after 3 chess moves each. There are over 288 billion different possible positions after four moves. The number of 40-move games is greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe."

Now if that be the case scenario of billions of possibilities rising out of a mere 64-boxed chess board with 32 players, how predictable do you think is the life that we are living with 8 billion players and each one with their own set and layers of multidimensional existences!!!

You don't need to have the whole picture, you just need to have enough light to make "YOUR" next BIG MOVE, and in the game of life, every single move equals to eternity itself!

Random Xpressions

[twistedpink]

(“Iron Legacy Anon”)

Ready to read what could be described as either a Play by Play of a very custom heavy round of Sentinels of The Multiverse, or a Fan Fic of a vaugely superhero themed story? Well, uhh, if this is posted you probably are.

Anyway… We zoom into the Freedom Tower, home of the Freedom Five, a well known group of superheroes. Due to the late night, a majority of the staff has gone home. Still at the tower however was one “Taychon” the team’s resident speedster and scientist. She was up in her lab when a strange knock on the door caused her to zoom down.

Ah! It was “The Engineer” of BLU Corp. The aftermath of the OblivAeon event had lead to many strange multidimensional meetups, with both RED and BLU having become valuable partners to various superheroes, with the BLU engineer having worked on an animate chessboard. She knew that a fellow resident, but not quite Freedom Five member would want to know of the delivery.

However, Unity was gone. Her robotic friend, Omnitron X had taken her place. The robot stared before giving Taychon a thumbs up, taking the chess board The Engineer had given her and placing on Unity’s desk.

With a sudden CRASH 3 hooligans stumbled into the lab… Taychon did not know them, but the entourage were kind enough to introduce themselves. It was 3 members of Heartslabyul, presumably some criminal organization. Apparently they had been tracking the package because the pieces did not follow The Queen of Heart’s rules… Ah! There’s somebody she recognizes, the Mad Queen of Wonderland. Recognizing the threat, Taychon gets into fighting position.

Hearing the commotion, Dell “The Engineer” Conagher wanders in. Now, it doesn’t take somebody with over 11 PHDs to recognize that this was a brawl, and the Texan was ready to get down and dirty. Sensing it’s master, The Chessboard began to power up… The King beginning to stir.

Turn One:

Despite the many speedsters, it was Riddle and the Heartslabyul residents who acted first. Seeking to destroy the ever more rule breaking chessboard, the house warden quickly sent out a collar to ensnare The King. With a LATCH the collar meant for human sized entities closed shut, binding the king in. Meanwhile, Cater sensing the threat, began to utilize his own Superpowers, creating two duplicates out of thin air!

Riddle however, sensing the others unnatural abilities and machinery plunged the tower into a tornado of cards! However, the team, being composed of adept superheroes and mercenaries quickly dodged the flood of collars. Taychon knew best that villains tended to hit hard then slow down, so she quickly dodged out of the way and started building up speed.

(Taychon discarded a Burst)

Nonetheless, the clones began their assault, both firing upon Taychon. She quickly weaved out of the way of the first one, leaving an unfortunate Omnitron X to take the blow. Distracted by the unexpected hit to a friend, Taychon took the other blow.

(For tax purposes, damage order was Taychon then Omnitron. Story makes more sense if order is Omnitron then Taychon.)

And so, the 4 opponents sprung into action. First was the mechanical chessboard. The head strategist, The King was hesitant to move. Hesitant to move due to the risk of the collar snapping closed, it instead called upon its pawns to arise! They began marching forward, eager to meet promotion. Marching forward across the board.

(One of the Catter clones also took a psychic damage, but again, not a good thematic way to represent that yet)

The Engineer understood one thing. He needed time, and resources to win a battle. Luckily, he had just the tool! Calling out “Building a Dispenser!” he quickly placed down the prefabricated machine from it’s toolbox casing. Quickly swinging his wrench, he funneled scrap metal into upgrading the machine. The dispenser soared to level 2 and The Engineer chuckled as the blue beams of light began connecting to himself, allowing him to continue his schemes in short order.

(No tax purposes here other than Engineer discarded some cards.)

Taychon raced on forwards, each footstep accelerating her faster and faster, buying her teammates more time to come up with strategies. Rushing forward in a firery burst, she quickly burned up all the cards, forcing Riddle to make less collars fly. Dashing forward, she quickly tried to see if two machines would work together and help… Bounding up to the dispenser, she massively sped it up. Leading to the speedster receiving a quick boost in supplies and The Engineer likewise too. The Engineer hammered down even harder on the dispenser, leading to it reaching it’s 3rd and highest level in record time!

Meanwhile, Omnitron X began doing relatively simple engineering according to Taychon. Unfortunately the author cannot understand Taychon’s technobabble, so in short, Omnitron summoned temporal shielding around itself. This shielding would protect itself from Catter’s clones, presumably due to studying the collars or something. All this tech stuff is beyond me. Anyway, Omnitron X proceeded to shift through time, letting Taychon burst forward even faster! She burst forward into the clone that hit her and shattered it into magical dust. Catter stared in horrified confusion as it faded away.

Sending the danger that could occur from being left in a close area with a hyper speedster, the remaining clone took the fight outside to a landing pad seeking the protection of the open air. Leading many routes of attack for the housewarden.

Turn 2:

Sending the King’s means of bypassing the collar, Riddle retrieved his collar around the king and sent many flying… However, the only one that could find purchase was the one back on the chessboard. An inevitable fate awaiting The King. Meanwhile, Catter, scared he might get punched into the stratosphere again, proceeded to summon 2 more clones. Riddle proceeded to butt to the front of the clones, shouting for them to get out of the way… But the clones stayed fast, the weaker one heading for The Engineer, who gladly took the fire to keep his building afloat. Taychon was once again hit by another one of the clones, never quite managing to wind her. However, the 3rd clones attack failed to find purchase due to the plating of Omnitron, only managing to dent the robot.

(Yes, Riddle did proceed to do nothing after playing “Get out of My Way”. Fun!)

The Chessboard, finding its moves restricted by the clones, animated the tricky Knight! Feeling the situation clamp closer to it like the collar slowly closing in, decided to let the pawns march forward… Waiting for the right move…

The Engineer, meanwhile, had no time for such distractions. Slamming his wrench into one of the Catter clones, he watched as he twisted the wrench out and the Catter clone slowly melted into more dust. Engineer quickly put the dusty wrench to work, using it to erect a Disposable Mini-Sentry. With a whack! The cheaply crafted machine fired two bullets at another Catter clone, who quickly dived for cover. While the Dispencer nourished its fellow machine in the form of Omnitron X. With more options and being fully repaired, could nothing stop the advanced machine?

Taychon however, was zooming at a million miles per hour. And I’m not sure if I’m being literal or not yet. She is the quickest woman on earth after all. Quickly grabbing her HUD goggles, she began pushing her limits and running as fast as she could… Dashing into a HYPERSONIC ASSAULT! Madly dashing into everyone at blitzing speeds, even the shockwaves stunned the real Carter and Trey, with the Housewarden standing oddly still. See, Trey had painted the Roses such that he would be counted as Riddle for the purposes of getting hit… Turning into a very effective bodyguard!

None the less, a little reality alteration couldn’t stop the world’s quickest woman. After failing a drive by of the Dispenser she began evaluating her possible resources and what she could do at a million miles per hour…

Meanwhile, Omnitron X. The robot deployed its Electro-Deployment Unit, ready to build out its suite of tools more. Quickly shifting through time to develop the chessboard’s state. Finding the pawns more useful after they’ve crossed the board, the robot tinkered the chessboard to make it work more like Checkers. Letting the pawns grow more powerful on their own instead of changing into a new piece at the end of the board…

Riddle quickly switched on a strange projection machine! It did nothing for now… But what would the strange housewarden be planning? Could he be stopped? Find out more next time on…

Uhh, see the start of the message.

(Sorry for not doing the full game all at once, my fingers hurt from typing on mobile and it is late!)

(For tax purposes, we left off on turn 2, environment end step. AKA when we return it will be Villain Turn 3!)

This was really well done! I was engaged the whole time, super happy you shared this with me!

[pokeglitchden]

have you ever heard of 5D Multidimensional Chess with Time Travel? If you have then that’s what the chess board recreates

A chess board that makes time for itself? Why, but there's always time for chess! Or Tea! Or an afternoon! But this one looks like it's already spent a night or two in the daylight!

Well, I always did tell myself I'd make time for a game! And this one appears to have made time for me! Linear and otherwise!

Time to move forwards, or perhaps sideways this time!

[theweeping-whistlers]

The Daily Fanfic Rec #6

Fandom : Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

Site : Ao3

Title : Teen Project to Change the World

Author : animeloverhomura

Summary :

Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, and Ouyang Zizhen listened attentively as Wei Wuxian explained his newest invention: a way to send memories to the past. Satisfied that he dealt with all possible paradoxes and running on -2 hours of sleep, he didn't make note of his sons' frankly concerning expressions.

"We could change everything!" they shouted simultaneously.

For better or worse, only time will tell.

Notes :

As far as watch and react stories go, this is one of the best on the market. Normally, it is very difficult to read and stay interested in one of these types of fics but this one is unique in so many wonderful ways that despite its nearing 900,000 word count I go back and reread it every couple of months. One of the many things I love about this fic is that people are scheming even as they watch their future schemes play out. The author doesn't exclude the villains, and because of the way that this fic is structured, it leads to interesting character development for the people reacting and the people on the outside. It is a multidimensional chess game, where everyone thinks they know what is going on, but do they really? I feel as though this fic in its own right is one of the staples of this Fandom. It is a fic that is to be cherished and read by everyone at least once. If you are looking for some sould deep character building, realistic reactions and characterization, an interesting take on the watch/react fic, and three different plot lines happening at the same exact time that all mix into one overarching plot than this is the fic for you.

[dark-elf-writes]

I think the best part about Sally being Reborn's daughter is her being Reborn's daughter at Reborn.

Like, he causes problems for other people on purpose for fun, and no one can do anything-

Until Sally looks at him and goes, "Hm. I think I will cause problems for you on purpose. Just for fun. :)"

And Reborn is left standing there like "Ah. This.. This feels like that whole cosmic irony thing people keep going on about."

And, yes. Sally's problems are usually completely harmless, especially compared to Reborn's.

But it's still funny.

Exactly. Exactly. You get me you understand the vision

Because Sally has always liked causing problems for fun from little rebellions like blue food to teasing Percy to (eventually) messing with Reborn and every time she does it Reborn is forced to look at a reflection of himself that he is not prepared to face and his o oh option (in his mind) is to turn violent to someone else usually a god who is tangentially related to whatever Sally is messing with him about.

And of course Sally, a regular mortal who has no way of going against the gods for everything they put her baby, is left innocently sipping at her coffee because how was she supposed to know he would do that?

What I’m saying is Sally is playing 4-D multidimensional chess, Reborn is playing 3-D chess, and everyone else is playing tic tac toe