#strange and weird and pathetic and sopping wet

[e8luhs]

i would love to be a nicer more sociable person like someone with open arms who can make friends easily with most people. however in reality 99% of the time that im talking to people i dont know im fighting for my fucking life

[maddiefriendlovesbilly]

Okay actually, I’m gonna be the change I want to see in the world— I Know I’m the only person pushing for this, but can you do a ship review on. Light Zeron and Officer Maloney— if you don’t know enough about either character for that,,,, I dunno— Poppy Soup and Sally Acachalla? - overthinkingtaleblr

you CANNOT do this to me I'm INSANE about both of these concepts and I'm gonna do both you fiend! I'm starting with zeron/maloney because I think the idea of that is just below spooker/maxwell for me on deranged (/pos) ships.

Light Zeron/Officer Maloney

so to start us off let's go over the AMAZING dynamic of "world's most pathetic officer of the law" and "vampire security guard on the run"

we know that maloney is. ahem. SHIT at catching criminals, which makes this whole thing work long enough that they Could form a love/hate relationship

god I want a 5k fanfic on this unironically but I would have to write it!!!!

is this post- or pre-vampire? I'm thinking pre BECAUSE imagine!!! imagine the angst

zeron is acting strangely, super out of character. the only person who knows him well enough to figure it out is the man trying to catch him :sobbing:

(also on an unrelated note, they're both aliens which I think is really cute)

look just like. god I'm just shaking my fists irl because I'm so incoherent about this

theyre like. weirdly similar tbh. something about their egos i feel like would both clash heavily and potentially work really well together

IT'S THE PERFECT ENEMIES TO LOVERS SICK FIC GODDAMN

zeron hasn't drunk any blood in ages, (something-something moral quandary something-something starving) and now he's basically passing out from malnutrition, so of course that's the moment maloney spots him in the alley he's squatting in.

and maybe if it were a stranger he would corner them and feed, (its so much easier to drink someone's blood when you can convince yourself that they aren't actually a person, in a weird, convoluted way) but this is someone he knows, maybe even respects. even if they are enemies.

so he doesn't want to drink maloney's blood, and that leaves him with only one other choice - he runs.

he pushes past him and ducks into the nearest abandoned building, hoping to lose maloney in there, but maloney's right behind him.

and meanwhile maloney, so used to their usual back-and-forth banter during fights, is highly confused (maybe a little upset - and fairly worried - if he's being honest) by this behavior.

zeron keeps running but it's clear he won't get much further unless he drinks someone's blood, and now there's literally only one person around - the guy he cares for too much (even if he won't admit it to himself).

be caught or surrender, that's his choice.

it's made for him when maloney catches his wrist - but instead of cuffing him, he spins zeron around, cornering him.

(at this point zeron is wondering if he's about to die a very painful death, but all he can do is stare at maloney's neck.)

maloney oblivious to his surroundings as always, is currently checking zeron over for injuries, and mentally slapping himself because he caught the criminal, why isn't he cuffing him?

this is around the time zeron's resolve breaks - close proximity to a very appetizing meal while starving makes it a bit difficult NOT to partake.

he goes for the neck - literally - and begins drinking like the world is ending. make this part as gay as your little heart desires.

being stabbed in the neck hurts, even more so when they are draining your blood, so maloney quickly pushes zeron off.

but a meal's a meal, and zeron is gone before maloney can even get a word in.

that's all ive got on that for right now haha, so let's hop over to pros and cons!

pros: very fun dynamic, their shared weirdness and the fact that they're both aliens (of different species) could be a bonding point, and they are both like. so so sopping wet and pathetic, they also have similar personalities in a strange way. great potential for hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers and hurt/no comfort fics.

cons: uhhhh. okay so theyre on opposite sides technically, which means any happy ending is gonna have a lot of rough spots, and there's like SO much distrust between them (and light zeron already has issues trusting others)

Conclusion: I'm like SOO biased here so give me a sec to find my center and use logic. Do I think they would work short-term? I feel like they would somehow manage it? like despite everything they'd somehow manage to stay in a not-so-secret kind-of-relationship for at least a year (meanwhile all the news stations are reporting about the two gay people fighting in the street again), and then they'd actually start going on the cheesiest dates ever (and causing pure chaos wherever they went), like coffee dates and amusement park dates and all that shit. everyone would just accept that they're dating and that maloney will probably never catch him but it's Buttsville, NC so what are you gonna do?

at the same time though, I'm sitting here like, what's the long-term gonna look like? does maloney become a criminal? do they get married and settle down? both are hilarious yet tragic because undoubtedly maloney would be a better criminal than police officer but it goes against his perception of himself, and neither is exactly built for domesticity. still, I think they'd manage. somehow it feels like they're too much of a force of nature to let something like that stop them, y'know?

[femgirlfriend-moved]

seriously the thing about male characters in fandoms is weirdddd. I'm assuming it's because a lot of fandom is driven by younger women but its like so strange it's always about one guy in particular and then finding a side guy to pair him with and there's nothing else to any of it idek how to word it but theres a reason a tumblr sexyman is a thing and it's always a man... and even off of the more fandomy side of tumblr like with people who are into succession or mcr or horror movies its all about being like "hes so babygirl sopping wet hes giving period cramps hes so mother" over like a random dude but then sweaaaaaring that its not because they think hes hot its all so weird (plus the calling them babygirl or saying he's your wife is so weird to me even if its girls making the jokes bc its like a degree away from a sissy fetish tbh like why is talkimg about him like hes a woman the same thing as calling him a pathetic little bug elaborate on that. but maybe I'm being a little too sjw on that one). pure insanity. and ofc at the end of it all female characters don't exist and if they do they're either a mom friend or in a single drawing calling them "my favorite mean girl!" and theyve got the lesbian and trans flags painted on their cheeks

this literallyyyy😭😭 you said it all especially the fetish part and the fact that them calling a male character woman or lesbian is equivalent to being emotional or frail or pathetic. it's some kind of internalized misogyny that uses a male character as a projector. weird as all hell and it's still going strong in basically any fandom old or new and we need to cut this behavior off as a society or we're never making it out of the patriarchy

[daincrediblegg]

YO!!! I was tagged by @officious-sea-lawyer to do this and so here I deliver:

❄️ Favorite Christmas movies

Well I actually have a NEW favorite christmas movie this year and it’s the 1970 Scrooge starring Albert Finney. True to my nature I really love a pathetic old man and he might be the most sopping wet and weird little scrooge I’ve ever seen but also in the flashbacks… holy shit he’s handsome (reminds me of francis a little. Just saying) … anyway go watch Scrooge all the songs were written by the same lady who did charlie and the chocolate factory. AS FOR OTHER FILMS GOD THERE’S PLENTY but to rattle off a few: Muppet Christmas Carol (THE FULL VERSION), Polar Express, any of the Rankin Bass christmas films, The Holiday, White Christmas, classic Grinch AND LA Grinch, 1939 christmas carol also. And of course, It’s A Wonderful Life.

☃️ Christmas traditions?

On christmas eve we all open a small present and then I make hot chocolate and watch the polar express when everyone’s gone to bed.

🎄 Favorite Christmas aesthetic? (Traditional, black and white, etc.)

Victorian!!!! Jesus christ but I love victorian christmas aesthetics (especially this year. Good GOD. I’m deeply into victorian christmas aesthetics this year)

🎁 Christmas food/drinks you love

HOT CHOCOLATE!!! But also I always buy a tin of danish butter cookies. I love those little bastards with the dried black currants in them especially. So fucking good. Also I won’t say no to a good gingerbread (or more importantly my fave cookie flavor of all time: ginger molases)

❄️ Best Christmas song

Not gonna lie. I fucking love Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It’s very nostalgic for me singing it with not just my youth choir but the WHOLE congregation at the end of Christmas Eve service and ringing bells… yeah man. Yeah. For more modern stuff I do fucking love any of Bing Crosby’s songs (but ESPECIALLY white christmas), and Andy William’s It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

🎄 One thing you got for someone (I won't tell :3)

I actually made hats for my whole family!!! Though actually I didn’t make a hat for my dad bc he doesn’t wear hats bc he’s a strange little man but I made him a little headband earmuff thing instead that I think he’ll really like 🥰

☃️ One thing you really, really want for Christmas

A fucking camera 🥲 I know I won’t get one tho. But I can DREAM can’t I? Other than that like the big thing for me is some new over ear sony headphones that don’t fucking hurt my ears and give me headaches yes. Other than that my 4 day trip to montreal was a great gift indeed I had a fucking blast (will provide details if wanted)

Now who to tag… hmm…

@prismatica-the-strange @your-mighty-words-astound-me @kittensmctavish @roaming-thru-roses @seldonhari @jokerownsmysoul @smileofacaffeinatedsaint and ANYONE ELSE TO WHOM THIS LOOKS LIKE FUN!!! Happy fuckin holidays bitches!

[the-s1lly-corner]

Squeezes the itward plushie to its demise

:0 i like birds. PIGEOOOOONS

Eyeing morgo rn... pending blorbo. Want him pathetic as a cat tho

Thinks and sits

Honestly I think while swap!morgo would still be similar to his canon personality (minus the evil) he would still carry this new shock when seeing the... well misfortune that misfortune brings... I mean like, he has NEVER seen a kid with this level of bad luck

This man shakes like a sopping wet cat when a satelite nearly smashes them both into the ground...

Think he also inherets some of itwards strangeness, too

Like I love itward but hes a lil funky and odd.. and I totally blame the 4 hour fandub for this but the VA who did itward made him sound nervous so now that's just how I perceive the dude. Awkward man

Very offbeat, I think that's the term I'm looking for...

Swap morgo adopts some of that awkwardness , I think

Sits

Swap itward would still be weird and awkward though... fail boy

.. I kinda wanna draw swap designs but I truly dont think their looks would shift all that much tbh ! This goes for misfortune and fran as well! I dont think being a genuinely caring figure would make morgo look different and if we're being honest itward looks at least a little intimidating as is

Sits n thinks

[labcoatlad]

Do you have any OCs? feel free to talk about them if you do

What was the first piece of media you engaged with on the internet? Are you still interested in it?

What's something you made or did that you're proud of?

What's something that made you smile this month?

AAIWWW.... THANK YOU...... I think this is my second ask ever. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ABOUT MY OCS !!!! Especially since it's so hard for me to come up with them and I finally did .... (based on a prompt on tumblr posted a long time ago ) So get this. There's this guy and he's your usual miserable pathetic sopping wet cat kind of guy and he gets fired from his job broken up with his girlfriend and kicked out of his home all on the same day .Because he's a loser like that. He spent the whoole day planning and stressing but nothing good comes out of it 😁So fast forward it's night and he's sleeping on a park bench with his suit from his office job still on tie wrinkled and everything with a newspaper for a blanket that flies away and his suitcase for a pillow . And then boom this random fella walks in and he's all dressed weird and it's craazy and the loser guy doesn't have time for this he's fed up.But the other guy persists and he starts talking in this strange foreign language and upon deeper inspection he's wearing these loong dramatic robes and clothing reminiscent of the 1200's Islamic golden age of iraaaq and he's speaking Arabic and he's like WHERE AM I????? And he TIME TRAVELLED. AND THEY FALL IN LOVE . AND THE LOSER SUIT GUY ACCIDENTALLY GOES BACK IN TIME and it's one of those things that is a funny comedic little thing with queer subtext that would've probably been popular in the superwholock era except it's not queerbaiting and there's a lot of angst The end ^_^ (I made some art but it's on my ipad and it's unfinished ... .You get the idea) RIGHT so first internet thing I engaged with was aall the way back when I was 11 and I was fixated on the trolls movie and I stumbled upon wattpad. Wattpad was like tumblr for me back then there was this whole community ANYWAY my 'mutuals' and I grew up and they all migrated to instagram where I eventually moved and it made me realise I was queer and autistic like the butterfly effect. I'm not interested in it as much of course but it's fun to think about and I'm grateful for it's effects on me .Also I'm excited for the upcoming third movie :^) A similar thing happened with me and dc/ lego batman movie but that's too much to get into. Something I made that I'm proud of uuheer I post all my art on instagram so there's that ^.^ I might also make some doctor who keychains for etsy I got into the artist seller grind .I should post my art more on here .And lastly you made me smile :-) ❤️🎀 .🌸

[zalerazz]

(knows very little about enstars) top 5 enstars?

oh fuck yes here we go, not necessarily in any order

1. Mika Kagehira

He's a silly little guy. A pathetic sopping wet beast. A kitten left out in a cardboard box in the rain. He's so strange and bizzare. He once almost buried his roommate alive. He goes "Ngaah". He rescues thrown away plushies and fixes them. He carries around a picture of Shu everywhere?? He's a little weirdo with a huge heart I wanna ruffle his hair

2. Shu Itsuki

He's just as weird and strange as Mika but on the opposite end of the spectrum. He laughs like "Kakakaka!" what's up with that. He used to be a really shitty person but he's been through a lot and grown and changed and I'm proud of him!!! He's still a bit of an ass but he cares a lot and that's just who he is.

3. Arashi Narukami

God I love Arashi... Arguably one of the more normal characters in enstars tbh. She's such a sweethearttt and she would do anything for her friends but has a hard time asking for help... relatable tbh. Her voice is one of my favorites in the whole game bc holy moly it's so fucking beautiful???

4. Ritsu Sakuma

I don't say this often about characters, but he's literally me. He has delayed phase sleep disorder (basically nocturnal),gets weak in the sun, and has a chronic pain condition. Literally did the writers base him on me?? He's clingy and likes attention, much like a cat. His friends compare him to a shadow; he's always around, but can be pretty quiet. He also gets jealous and has abandonment issues. It's like looking into a mirror I swear

5. Sora Harukawa

Sora is very often misunderstood by the fandom at large which is very sad bc he is so special to me!! He's very extroverted and talks in the third person, and some people kinda dumb down his character which is very not him. Despite his young age, he's extremely emotionally intelligent. He used to mask a lot before joining Switch, but he feels like he can truly be himself now with the support of his friends. He gets along with everybody and treats everyone the same regardless of how strange they may be. My one gripe with him is that his synesthesia is really unrealistic; synesthesia doesn't exactly let you see people's emotions or see if people are lying. But regardless, I love him.

ty sm for the ask bagel ♡

[canaliculi]

Knock on my Door

Gravity Falls

Bill/Ford

M: graphic injuries, hurt/comfort, fluffy weirdness

It's a story old as Time Baby: Boy meets Triangle, Triangle betrays Boy, Boy gets horribly mauled in a faraway dimension and Triangle takes it upon itself to help out.

Where had he heard it before? Wounded animals will hide themselves away. He’d read it somewhere, right? And someone – probably Stan – had said: to die? Ford felt pathetically like one in this moment. A wounded animal. A dying animal, but that was just a dose of melodramatics on his part. Sure, his shoulder felt like it was going to fall off, taking his arm with it. Sure, he could feel loose flaps of skin slapping up and down with every step. Sure, well, he actually wasn’t sure, if the line of soaked clothing down his left flank was sopped with blood or saliva or sweat, all he knew was the cool, sucking tug of it as it clung to his arm and chest and ribs, the uncomfortable itch of it at his hips.

Sure, he was dizzy and his mouth felt dry. And at times his eyes would flicker, his vision splintering into doubles. But he wasn’t dying. Ford couldn’t die out here. Not when doing so would leave so much else undone. His mistake was still out there, a handful of code and a button smash away from lurching back into motion. And Bill was still out there, crouched like a stinging insect, a caverning, tumorous growth on the multiverse that he planned to excise.

And he still had to tell Stanley- No.

And he still had to tell Fiddleford- No!

Breathe, he told himself, and he would have said it aloud had he the breath to gasp it with. His lungs were burning. The adrenaline that had fueled him thus far had to be winding down – heat was beginning to radiate from his wound, from the muddily defined and sheared oval where the creature had clamped down on him with its jaws. God, Ford had heard the sound of its teeth scraping along his bones. The groan of his joint as it dug in deeper, deeper, clenched him between its teeth. The fetid, rotten-meat stink of its mouth as it panted and growled in his face, the speckles of viscous, foamy spittle that had sprayed across his hair and cheek while dense globs of it trailed down its teeth, into his arm, dripped down over his body in long stretchy strings. The soft sound that was like a damp paper bag being ripped apart, as he was shaken violently in its grip, and Ford had known it as the sound of his skin and muscle tearing.

Nausea flared up bright and sudden, a hot, acidic surge that burned in the back of his throat, and Ford had to stop to heave. It splattered wet and thick on the ground, between the spread fingers that had risen automatically to his mouth. He stumbled away, limbs shaking. Something chimed in the back of his mind, a little warning bell that tolled, but he couldn’t bear to examine the emesis any further. If the bright arterial red that he dreaded was present, what was there to do? Best not to open that door at all.

The rest of his travel passed as a blur. His gait turned to shambling, meandering steps, his body visibly swaying whenever he caught a chance to pause and rest. The rumbling of the dark sky grew louder, clouds swollen and bloated with the threat of rain. Ford was passing through a wood of white trees, their limbs a delicate tangle that he crashed through, to the cave he had taken shelter in, and the irony – or perhaps merely the mimicry – of his situation was not lost on him. When the first heavy drop of rain landed on his forehead, the only reaction that came was relief as the droplet cut through the heat of his skin.

His right hand was shaking and smeared liberally with bile, and blood from holding his injured shoulder in place. Without the support of his other hand, Ford felt his left arm sag. It had only been a few years since he was thrown out of his home dimension, but experience had taught him already the importance of carrying his own medical supplies. He fumbled with the lock but managed to get his supply kit open, grimacing at its contents. They had been running low for some time, Ford knew that, but every city had been plastered with pictures of his face, thrumming with creatures that turned to track his movements within a crowd, eyes that watched him far too closely and searched him for weapons or obvious injury.

He had put it off. Until he found a safer dimension, he’d said. Until he’d be able to scrape together more funds. And really, while he might have been prone to injuries at the beginning of his journey, who was to say that he would need any of these supplies in the near future? Ford was a fast study, decisive and quick on his feet – what, truly, were the chances?

Apparently, he managed to think ruefully, through the sluggish daze of his thoughts, the chances were quite good.

Ford had to waste the last of his potable water rinsing the grim off his hands. Then he sat by the lip of the cave, left arm propped up on a protruding rock formation, and began to cut away at the shredded remains of his shirt and jacket. Each frayed thread of his coat took multiple snips of his scissors to get through, so that sweat soon dripped down his forehead, the muscles of his right arm burning from the awkward angle he was forced to work from. Ford concentrated on the frustration, jaw clenched tight. Not on the inflamed, almost pulp-like mass of ravaged skin he was slowly beginning to see more and more of.

Just one step at a time. His head was swimming. Get the fabric out of the way, get a clear view of the wound. His pulse was pounding again, and he imagined he could feel a viscous gush of blood oozing out of his shoulder and arm at every beat. Ford cut along from his collar to the bony protrusion of his acromion process and then cut down, until he could rip the entire sleeve free of his left arm. He leaned his head back, turned his face to press his cheek against the cool, scratchy surface of the rock wall behind him.

Maybe he should take a break – a quick one. His eyes were burning. His head was throbbing. What harm would a minute or two bring? And he was so tired. When was the last time he’d gotten a decent night’s rest? A year, at the very least. If he was being honest, it was even more than that. Not since before the portal. Those early days with Bill, where he was more than eager to sleep, where each day was an opportunity, a new adventure; not fueled by necessity or obsession, but pure scientific wonderment.

In fact, he could remember a particular summer’s afternoon that he had spent on the small, supposedly monster-ridden Scuttlebutt Island. Ford had fallen asleep sprawled on one of the gritty, sandy beaches, the sun blinding even through his eyelids, heating every inch of his body, remaining just shy of unbearable. Bill had shown up like a sunburst, and when Ford had risen to greet him a hand had shoved through the shifting sands and pulled him back down.

He had felt more than saw Bill settle into the sand at his side. One of his muse’s small hands had drifted across the bulge of a rib, and then he began to talk. Bill talked about another dimension – not Ford’s and not his; a dimension that he said didn’t exist anymore. It’d contained a planet that was nothing but a thin, snakelike island, looping and doubling back on itself as it meandered around its equator. Beaches that stretched for miles and miles and miles, dotted with hidden coves and basins its denizen would sneak away to. Ocean waters that were a rich, velvet purple, and far below the surface, rocks that glowed pink and orange and verdant in the sun-starved depths of the sea.

It had been so easy to picture it, lying there on the beach. Bill’s voice steady, his hand sweeping back and forth over his skin, a grounding and electrifying anchor. An afternoon spent drowsing next to his muse, imagining far away and bizarre lands, and the creatures that inhabited them. Ford could remember one in particular, an eel large enough to swallow cruise liners whole. Bill had said you could see through its translucent body to the vibrantly colored spines within, and its organs that changed hues according to its digestion cycle. Really! They’re only dangerous when they’re yellow, but they’re yellow most of the time!

Should Ford have taken that as a warning? There were so many things Bill had said and done that, with revelation and retrospect, had taken on sinister and even cautionary tones. Like Bill had been dropping hints along the way, just to rub them in Ford’s face one day. It could almost be considered plausible deniability, but Ford severely doubted that Bill cared enough to claim any form of deniability. Ford could (had) accuse him of deceit and treachery, and all Bill would do is laugh and tell him what a sucker he had been.

There’s a sucker born every minute. A favorite saying among his family members, and Ford guessed that the minute he and Stan were born, he was the dupe.

It was close to this time that Ford realized his arm was no longer hurting. There was no universe in which that was a good sign. His eyes flew open, to the further realization that he was no longer in his body, instead floating in the muggy air of the cavern, and his first thought was to wonder if he had died. And his second thought was that something even worse had happened, as he watched his body jerking to life without him.

“Bill!” Hollow ringing and strangely empty, as it had always sounded when Bill shoved him out of his body.

“In the flesh, Fordsy! Your flesh if we’re talking specifics!” And Bill, peppy as always, though coming through Ford’s vocal cords the words had a coarse edge to them. “Took you long enough to notice!”

“Get out! Get out of my body, Bill!” He knew it wouldn’t do any good, but Ford lunged towards himself anyway, unsurprised when he flew through his body and the wall behind him. It still annoyed him.

“Nah, I don’t think I will,” Bill answered, and Ford got back just in time to watch him stagger to his feet. Bill had to steady himself against the stone formation for a moment, hunched over and breathing raggedly. Ford felt something like cold dread hammering in his chest as he watched himself, the way his chest seemed to quiver and shake on every inhale, his face not warped with the casual grin Bill usually forced, but twisted with exertion.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re the genius here IQ, I’m sure you can figure it out.” Bill lurched upwards again, and curled the fingers of his right hand into one of the deep puncture wounds along his bicep. He reached out and began smearing his blood across the bumpy cavern wall, dipping back in frequently to rewet his fingers.

“Everything is under control,” Ford said. He threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes when he saw Bill was painting a crude triangle on the wall in his blood. “What are you doing?”

“Everything is under control,” Bill repeated nasally. “I’m Dr. Stanford Pines, I have 12 PhDs but not one of them is in self-preservation, I go to sleep when I’m bleeding out all over the wall and floor of a creepy cave seventeen dimensions to the left of my own.”

“I was not sleeping-”

At that, Bill turned around, and the unimpressed stare he leveled towards Ford was only slightly diminished by the way Bill wobbled about on his shaky legs. It shouldn’t be possible, but Ford felt heat creeping up his neck, as though his face was flushing.

“I was just resting for a moment,” Ford said. His gaze skipped off Bill to the rock he had been leaned against, the long smear of wet blood he had left behind. How long had he been out before Bill took over?

“Glad to see you’ve taken the whole time-is-relative-and-meaning-has-no-meaning-thing to heart!” Over Bill’s shoulders, Ford noticed that the red triangle on the wall was glowing, and a bulbous eye opened up in its center. Its slit pupil widened and then constricted, focusing, and Bill twisted his body around before it, like he was posing in front of a strange and grotesque mirror.

Ford couldn’t help but to hover closer, wringing his hands without thought as he crept closer to his ruined shoulder. It was still difficult to see but what was visible didn’t look good. If he were still corporeal, he might have felt dizzy. None of the form of his joint had been left intact; in fact, his entire shoulder reminded Ford of the end of a chewed dog toy, mushed and uneven and raggedly torn.

“I-I-I need to...”

“Relax, IQ!” Bill snapped. He stepped outside to where the rain had picked up. Ford hadn’t even noticed when it had turned from a drizzle to a downpour, and part of him wanted to again try and stop Bill – who knew what was in the rain water on this planet, he hadn’t had the chance to examine it yet – but he watched his former muse who with teeth grit and eyes clenched shut was scrubbing his wounds clean, and he remained quiet.

His left arm hung abnormally low, like it was dangling from stretched out muscles and ligaments, the bone no doubt forced from its socket. Bill slunk back inside and flopped down. He shucked the remains of Ford’s jacket, dropping it without fanfare to the hard, dirt strewn floor. His shirt followed, but this Bill kept in his lap, and began ripping into long, thin strips. Ford’s left hand had to be purposefully arranged, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the sight of his fingers’ fitful twitching, barely able to close into a fist.

Even so, there was a bizarre comfort in the rhythmic shredding, its sound low and steady, evenly paced. Soon Bill had an overflowing handful of shoddy ribbons, which he heaped in a pile on the shelf-like rock beside him. Then Ford watched his body lean over, rummaging through his meagre medical supplies. Ford felt a little lost, like he was a child once more, hiding behind the door to his room and listening to his parents arguing, waiting for Stanley to come back in and tell him everything was going to be fine.

Something warm and soft wrapped around his legs, and Ford yelped, certain he was going to have a heart attack, or a seizure, or whatever happened to consciousnesses that had been stripped from their bodies. He wasn’t even sure how something had grabbed onto him but he struggled against its insistent grip all the same, rapidly losing his calm as the thing slung itself upwards, winding around him in quick coils.

“B-Bill! Help-” The rest of his sentence was muffled as the thing looped a slim protrusion across his mouth.

“Help! As in, exactly what I’m doing?” Ford continued to panic, convinced that Bill was distracted, that his muse - former! - hadn’t noticed some other dimensional being slip inside with them. Until Ford happened to glance at the wall and found the triangular mark still glowing, staring at him in a way that he could almost imagine was… disapproving. Bill and the sigil on the wall rolled their eyes in unison. “I’m trying to get you to calm down. That’s what you wanted, right? Some of that, what is it, human empathy?”

The tendril wrapped around his body constricted him tightly and then relaxed, until it dangled from his arms and legs in lazy rings, running up his chest in a spiraling pattern. It dropped away from his mouth, and its tip brushed up and down his cheek, almost like an apology. Against his better judgment and all reason pointing him otherwise, Ford found himself leaning into its strange embrace. It rewarded him by squeezing, supporting his incorporeal form, and Ford felt it rippling against his body, undulating in slow waves.

Bill didn’t seem like he was paying either of them any mind, busy dumping a dark brown solution over his shorn piles of cloth, soaking the thin fabric, but the eye on the wall remained locked on Ford. It was nostalgic, painfully so. Ford clenched his jaw shut tight and said nothing. A few moments passed in silence aside from the dull pitter-pattering of rain on the canopy of trees just outside, an imaginary heartbeat Ford couldn’t actually feel at the moment slowing. Ford let his eyes drift closed.

Absurd, this was all absurd. He and Bill were enemies. Ford was the one who would put an end to all of Bill’s mischief and monstrosity, someday soon. Their friendship, if there was still anyone left who would call it such, had been based on lies and convenience, and carelessly discarded at its first disposable instant. And Ford had been the only one to lose anything – to lose everything, and here he was still, lost and alone in an unkind dimension, hunted and stalked by half the multiverse.

And the cause of it all was in his body, had a projection swaddled around him in some simulacrum of kindness. It would make him feel nauseous if he were still in his skin. Ford opened his eyes again. Bill was packing the medicinally soaked strips into his deeper wounds, humming a discordant tune. When he noticed Ford watching he stopped long enough to say:

“Fluff, not stuff!”

And then resumed his actions. A movement on the wall caught Ford’s attention. He looked towards it in time to see the triangle’s eye wink at him and turn into a mouth, which promptly stuck its tongue out at him.

“Absurd,” Ford said, but saying it aloud didn't make any more sense of his current situation. He was pinned somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

“Absurdity, like its ugly cousin Beauty, is all in the eye of the beholder, Fordsy! Which, speaking of, have you run into one yet?”

“A Beholder?”

“You bet! They’re not quite like the ones in that dumb game of yours – they have even more eyes if you can believe it – but it’s a bit of a unique coincidence all the same!”

“Serendipitous,” Ford replied.

“Absurd!”

Ford couldn’t help the smile that wormed its way to his face this time. He and the sigil on the wall both watched in silence as Bill began to spool gauze around his arm and shoulder. It was, Ford had to admit, at least a little impressive. And surprising. Bill had never shown much interest in preserving human life, as opposed to his blatant interest in endangering it. Not to mention he was working with one arm, in a body suffering from a severe blood volume deficit and untold traumatic damage.

“Well!” Bill said abruptly. “I’m out of stuff to do!” He leapt to his feet, and had to place a stabilizing hand on the wall behind him. “If you stay out here, you’re gonna die!” Ford had been on the verge of thanking him. “Lucky you, I happen to know of a few less than totally scrupulous surgeons that would be willing to work on you on the down low!”

“Bill,” Ford began, trying to disentangle himself from the clingy tentacle, “there are a number of reasons that avenue is not open to me. The most immediate of which being the bounty you’ve placed on my head, which I’m sure ‘less than totally scrupulous’ doctors would be more than happy to collect.” The tentacle remained firmly wrapped around him, regardless of his squirming.

“Ah, don’t worry about that stuff Sixer! It’s above your paygrade! Get yourself there, and it’ll all work itself out!”

The tendril dissipated in thin streams of billowing smoke, and with it gone so entirely Ford found himself wanting it back.

“What, I’m supposed to just-” trust you?

“Just walk right in! It’ll be fine, scout’s honor!” Bill held up his hand in an old eagle scouts salute that Ford barely remembered Stan giving all the time. “Fine, pinky promise?” He extended his hand out towards Ford’s form, and Ford rolled his eyes and stretched his own to grasp it. As soon as he did, he found himself thrust back into his body, feeling as though he’d been dropped off a cliff side to do so.

He had been left utterly alone, with his arm and shoulder throwing off deep and constant spikes of agony. Bill had been thoughtful enough to fashion him some sort of sling for his injured arm to lie in, but there was nothing here he could do for the pain. The triangle was still on the wall, murky and dull now that he was once more planted firmly in the physical dimension. Beneath it was a barebones map – just the cave he was in, a few major landmarks, and a dotted line which Ford assumed he was meant to follow.

When had Bill even had time to draw this sketchy, nigh-illegible scribble? It must have been sometime while Ford was resting, and somehow its mere presence irritated him. Bill had drawn it up before Ford had agreed to anything, just assuming that he was going to do what he was told - a trait Bill shared with Stanley. It made Ford want to dig his heels in and live in this cave until he died, but there was an unfortunately very real concern that said death would come rather quickly.

Ford committed the crude map to memory and spent a few hobbled minutes gathering what supplies he could reasonably carry in his state. What was left of the medical supplies – some Band-Aids with you’re an all star! printed on them, some tape, about half a roll of gauze – was left where it lie, and Ford spared about half a thought to hope it might benefit some other traveler one day. All that left him was a few pieces of soy bread, an empty canteen, and a busted Walkman that had somehow become attuned to Interdimensional Talk Radio (which was surprisingly similar to the talk radio he remembered from Earth, except it managed to be even more inflammatory).

Ford put on the mangled remains of his jacket and headed out.

A few short weeks later he was slipping out the back of what could only – generously – be called an organ harvesting farm. And yet somehow, true to Bill’s word, they had cared for him, even rehabilitated him until function had been restored to his left arm. The only proof left behind was a tangled mess of puckered scar tissue, and the assurance that he would always know when it was going to rain from here on out.

On his way out, Ford had spotted a stack of wanted posters at a ‘nurse’ station, and had snagged one for himself. Now he stared down at the crumpled flyer in his hands, unsure what the fluttering feeling in his stomach was meant to be telling him.

WANTED: ALIVE

Stanford Pines, of dimension YOU KNOW THE ONE!

LIMITED TIME OFFER! REWARD DOUBLED FOR RETURN WITH ALL FOUR FUNCTIONING HUMAN LIMBS INTACT!

ACT FAST! RULES AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY! SEE BILL CIPHER FOR DETAILS! Conveniently located in your DREAMS, NIGHTMARES, and in CERTAIN DIMENSIONS, that CRAWLSPACE IN THE ATTIC YOU’VE BEEN AFRAID TO GO IN!