#these are so nonsequential

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: April 15

"Something in the Way She Moves" by James Taylor

[indy829]

Some propaganda for Audrey. I do think that Eartha will take the whole cake (and if she does, she deserves it), but I do always appreciate an opportunity to share Two for the Road Audrey.

The first image many have of Hepburn is what I call "Dorm Room Wall Audrey," where she's decked out in one of her resplendent Givenchy gowns or vanishing under a large exquisite Cecil Beaton hat.

However, my favorite brand of Audrey is "'60s Mod Audrey on a Roadtrip through the South of France":

Two for the Road (1967) was her second to last film in her 1953-1967 hot streak before entering semi-retirement to raise her son Sean and to recover from being married to Mel Ferrer for too long.

It was her third time being directed by Stanley Donen after Funny Face (1957) and Charade (1963) and tells the story of couple Mark and Joanna Wallace (Albert Finney and Hepburn respectively) navigating the ups and downs of their tumultuous yet passionate relationship over the course of 12 years. It's experimental in its nonsequential storytelling, transitioning frequently between different years of their relationship. Essentially, Two for the Road backpacked so Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind could run. It's also very telling that screenwriter Frederic Raphael would go on to write the screenplay for Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Donen said of directing Hepburn that of all of their collaborations, Road saw Hepburn at her most relaxed. And watching her as Joanna, one does get the sense that she hadn't been so unguarded and comfortable in her own skin since Roman Holiday (1953).

Joanna may have also been the most complex role she ever had the chance to play. The 12-year timeline allows us to see how her naive ingenue persona slowly evolves into the world weary women she played in her later films that were getting sick and tired of men's shit.

Her fashions in the film also gave us a unique off-the-rack Audrey. Her Givenchy wardrobe was often like a suit of armor for her and alleviated her of some of the insecurities she struggled with. In Road, she allowed herself to dispose of that crutch and gave us what I feel is her best performance. The woman got to wear a skintight PVC suit and even jeans and a pair of Converse!

@hotvintagepoll

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

The site had just been marked as a passing reference in one of the numerous incomplete texts in Shalidor’s own hand (not always legible, as the great mage—and she has very tactfully not said this aloud to Urag—had atrocious penmanship), which is why she hadn’t come expecting much the first time. Most of the places mentioned in Shalidor’s notes either no longer exist or are long since emptied, by age or by adventurers who don’t know anything about good conservation technique and insist on leaving their own journals all over the place with barely a page or two filled. She imagines whoever is bookbinding for these adventurers must run a surprisingly lucrative business.

This particular site, being potentially important (please let it be important), has earned a second visit after an impassioned dual presentation that the Archmage politely listened to about a nonsequential quarter of between extended bouts of contemplating the steam from his tea, should one be inclined to a generous estimate.

“This is it, then?” Tolfdir huffs out a breath and lowers his pack to the ground in a relatively dry patch, peering with interest at the mostly-buried structure before them. “I do so love a good excavation, it must be said. How did you get in the first time?”

“Well—” Kharish tests the dirt with the toe of her boot. Not too muddy, under the snow, as long as they’re careful. “Took some digging.” She drops into a crouch, tilts her head, squints. She’d covered up the entrance when she’d left last time to try to keep the interior as undisturbed as possible, not expecting to have to uncover it again herself. “Over there, I think—I couldn’t get to the door, but something knocked a hole in there that did drop down into what looked like the main entry passage.”

“Fascinating,” says Tolfdir, clapping his hands together. “Shall we?”

She goes first, because it’s more of a drop than she remembered and she does not want to know what happens to her career trajectory if he breaks an ankle. A smattering of dislodged dust and dirt dribbles from the lip of the hole in the ceiling when she looks up, arms held out and knees braced. “Rea—ack.” His satchel smacks into her temple and she blinks a brief burst of stars out of her eyes. He is unexpectedly sturdy. Maybe she could have let him go first after all.

“Thank you,” he says cheerfully, righting himself and starting down the dark hall, magelight already hovering over his shoulder. “They don’t put much padding on these floors, do they? Notes for future tomb-builders, let’s say.”

Kharish ducks under a low-hanging cobweb. “Future, er… I thought you said these kinds of tombs weren’t still being built?”

“Not at all,” Tolfdir pauses to inspect a relief, nose nearly against the stone. “But wouldn’t it be nice if they were? The use of a hall of the dead has been much more prevalent than a tomb barrow for—oh, ages now.” He seems pleased by whatever he needed to sniff from the wall and steps back again, brushing off his hands. “Eras, even! Why, I should tell you, it’s gone through several renovations of course, but the Windhelm hall of the dead, for example, is quite the historical treat. In fact, records dating back to the second era seem to indicate—”

She remembers abruptly that Urag specifically warned her, stressing the timeframe of once they’d arrived, not to ask Tolfdir about tombs. Or their architecture. You’ll never get him to stop, he’d said seriously, rubbing at the bridge of his nose the way he does when he’s been wearing his glasses too long, and you can’t afford distraction in there because we may not get another chance at this one. Do not let him talk about the tombs.

“What do you know about Ulfsild?” she interrupts—which is all she can think of right now, a little jittery, with the mental note to ask him again about the Windhelm hall of the dead on the way back to Winterhold to make up for the interruption—and hesitates a moment to slide an ajar coffin lid closed as gently as she can.

Tolfdir hums thoughtfully. She hadn’t expected it to work so well, but he says, “Oh, no more than the average scholar, I suppose. Not quite more than the name. It’s rather exciting, isn’t it? Another thing to love about these old places; every one holds some grand new discovery that could alter our understanding of the world as we know it.” He adjusts the strap of his satchel on his shoulder and continues, gesturing for her to take the lead now that he’s done studying the bas-relief. “It didn’t sound like you and Urag had gotten very far in the journal transcription; had you come across anything of note yet?”

It’s always better to be cautious about things that aren’t certain—if she were to allow herself to be a little reductive, she would say that history is nothing but context, and an asyndetic text, even a primary source, requires a degree of speculation that, applied too liberally, can often be worse than useless. And it’s not really quite her field anyway: she repairs the books. What’s inside, she’s still discovering, is often more questions than answers. “It’s a possibility,” Kharish acknowledges finally. There’s a narrow stairway; she turns sideways, awkward, to descend. “The back two-thirds looked much more esoteric, but the first section appeared to be fairly detailed notes on the construction of Eyevea. From what I saw of the relevant entries, her discussion suggested more of a—technical familiarity—than Urag says is typically believed she would have had.”

“I see! Yes, I believe I recall he told me their separation occurred during the whole Eyevea ordeal. Very sad, isn’t it?” he muses. “Scholars of the same discipline should never get too involved. Think how many good academic arguments would be discouraged if the participants risked upending their home lives!”

“Well, I don’t know about that; being able to articulate a distinction between your home life and your academic life should be a priority if you’re really invested in the preservation of both aspects of the relationship, but even so, incompatible personalities will probably always find something to—hang on, this one,” she cuts herself off, stopping before an arch marked with a stylized owl and going for her little notebook. The hollow eyes glare down at her. She squints back at them and then compares it to the unflattering scribble in her notes. “Yes. This one.”

“Ah!” Tolfdir peers up at it, redirecting his magelight to shift the shadows. A fistful of dust from overhead smatters into his hair. Kharish reaches up absently to ruffle the debris out of her own hair, waiting. The faint dust cloud that results drifts downward, glittering faintly in the magelight, and dissipates. “The owl of Jhunal—not as popular as Kyne’s hawk, as bird imagery goes, but no less significant for it. Did you know, when associated with a specific mage, the configuration of the feathers is thought to represent the school the mage specialized in—”

Scrambling for something to write with in her bag, she shakes her notebook to a fresh page. “Wait, wait, wait—really? Which feathers? What would this one represent?”

“Hmm,” he says, thoughtful. And then, again, “Hmm.” He puts a hand to his chin, gesturing with the other to move the magelight once more. “I can’t say it looks to be one of the established schools of magic. The barring on the tail is quite destruction, but the chiselwork across the shoulders more closely resembles the iconography for alteration. And the head! Difficult to make out, but it doesn’t look right at all. You know, I do wish we’d thought to bring a stepping-stool.”

She pauses, staring at the owl. If it were a flat carving they could take a rubbing and look at it later in better light, perhaps; beveled as it is though, the distortion of a rubbing might obscure or alter some small important detail. “Can you draw?”

“Oh, well,” says Tolfdir, stroking his beard modestly, “I won’t be asked to paint in Solitude any time soon, certainly, but I have been known to—doodle, as it were. On occasion. One must have hobbies, after all.”

---

Which is how he ends up on her shoulders, carefully copying the owl into her notes.

“The iconography really is all over the place,” he muses. “It will be worth reviewing my references once we get back, I believe. Most fascinating!”

“I’m sure it’ll be a—” He can’t see her, but she valiantly struggles to maintain a straight face anyway, on principle. “—hoot.”

The scrtch of paper pauses overhead as he laughs, sudden and delighted. “Yes, of course! I’ll be certain to gather, ah, owl the material required.”

“Ha! —whoops, sorry—” The laugh pitches him backwards with an oop!; she bites back her grin, standing straighter and rebalancing him. “If all else fails we may have to wing it.”

“Oh, no,” he says gravely, “that would be academically irresponsible.” When she sets him down, though, there’s a twinkle in his eye as he returns her notes. “Here you are: one mysterious owl, rendered to the best of these old hands’ capabilities. Onward, then,” he begins, looking preemptively pleased with himself; “while we still have a few unruffled feathers each.”

Her laughter rings out with an echo down the hall ahead of them. The dust that falls loose from the ceiling lands light as snow.

---

The room is just as she left it, mostly: the loose jaw of the skeleton in the sarcophagus at the center of the room has dropped to tangle with the collarbones. “Sorry,” Kharish whispers to the skull, gingerly lifting the mandible pieces back into place, pressing a touch of sticking shield to the joint with her thumb. It will almost certainly fall apart again, but not, at least, while they’re here. To Tolfdir, she says aloud, “There shouldn’t be anything new—I took the journal from the mouth, three pieces in worse shape from the shelf, and a rubbing of the inscription at the base of the platform.”

He has his nose poked rapturously into an urn when she turns around. “Funerary oils,” he says by way of explanation; “they vary slightly depending on region, era, belief—” A beat. He sniffs it again. “Decidedly floral,” he says, thoughtful. “Though gone quite stale, of course.”

There isn’t anything new, as predicted. She generally leaves the grave goods alone. No need to bother with anything that can’t be read or transcribed or translated. The dead should be allowed to keep whatever artefacts of life they have left, when they can; the ones that have opinions on the matter historically tend to agree on this. Much of what’s here, Kharish thinks, seems puzzlingly unimportant, as far as things left in tombs go. A cracked alchemical retort, bits of glass around the base, next to three also-smashed empty bottles. A plain, tarnished metal ring at the bottom of half a mug. A regular, if rotten, stick that (she checked) has no magical resonance whatsoever.

Checking through the shelves up against the wall for anything of interest, she pauses at a small metal figure of a wolf, on its side behind a cup and laid atop a disintegrating scarf. Cruder than an artisan’s rendition would be, with the tell-tale prick about it of something that’s been shaped with magic. The back of the head and the base of its ears have been worn smooth, as though by the meditative rubbing of a fingertip. Careful, she takes the wolf—small and disconcertingly cool in her palm. For Mara or for Ulfsild herself, she wonders. She can’t say it in any official capacity, as it’s a sentimental and unacademic thought, but it’s cute. And the soft shape of the ears and the tilt of the head do seem to invite touch.

No maker’s mark on it, though. Made then by someone who didn’t make a habit of magic metalworking? She sets the wolf upright on the scarf again, the clink of little inexpertly-shaped metal paws on the shelf muffled. It’s the only thing like itself in the room. Broken glass, broken dishes, dried-out inkpots, a rotting scarf, and a wolf. And lots of dust and dirt, but that’s a given.

Too many questions, really. She wipes her palms on her thighs and turns back to the center of the room. “What do you make of the epitaph?”

“A bit more hostile than epitaphs tend to be, curiously.” Tolfdir sets down a lens he’d been inspecting and nods back to the sarcophagus, peering at the plaque again. He threads his fingers through his beard in contemplation. “It’s rather—well, the person leaving the inscription clearly wishes regret upon the, ah, entombed, expressing triumph at outliving her, with some rather colorful language and a consumptive metaphor; though I’m not quite clear why.”

“A consumptive—oh,” she says; then, again, “oh.” The notes left pointedly wedged between the teeth. Hand to her mouth, she looks from him to the empty eye sockets of the skull. “—eat your words.”

[datapacks]

I just wanted to tell u that im most excited about your birds. Genuinely i just want to fill my world with as many birds as i possibly can

Yesssssss I'm so glad to hear. I want to make sure to add 1 bird, 1 crop, and 1 other mob to every update, at the Very least, though if I do a standalone for my birds I could work on them nonsequentially..... hm......... I'm also v much figuring out how I'm gna do bird cages, I've got some.... interesting :3 ideas.

[otaku-girl-ao3]

Sugar Daddy? Call Me (Sir) - Chapter 90 - Wonka (2023) - Willy Wonka x Felix Fickelgruber

“You can’t hide away in my kitchens forever.”

It had been nearly two weeks since he had spent the night curled up in front of the fireplace until the early hours of the morning, cheek resting on Duckie’s lap as she listened to his rambling words through the tears. He couldn’t have been that coherent, the words tumbling out of him in one big, nonsequential, jumbled mess. Yet she had listened so patiently, gently prompting him when words failed him, fingers combing through his dishevelled curls when speaking proved to be too much. 

She reminded him so much of his Mamma. She didn’t offer him meaningless platitudes or promises that everything would be better. She hadn’t offered assurances that Felix was in the wrong, or that he was right to do what he did and heave. She hadn’t really done much of anything, other than listen and hold him and be there when he needed someone — anyone — to see his pain and acknowledge it for what it was. That it wasn’t wrong, or childish, or selfish. That it was okay to stumble and to crack just a little bit. And in the morning, she had been there to help him hold the pieces together, and get back up. In truth, he didn’t know what he would have done without her those first tentative days. He still wasn’t quite sure what he would do without her quiet, steady support.

Sugar Daddy? Call Me (Sir) (213066 words) by Otaku_girl, AHatfulOfDreams Chapters: 90/? Fandom: Wonka (2023), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Mr. Fickelgruber/Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka/Felix Fickelgruber Characters: Willy Wonka, Felix Fickelgruber (Wonka 2023) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, BDSM, Bottoming, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Comfort, Consent, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Daddy Felix Fickelgruber, Deviates From Canon, Drama, Falling In Love, Feels, Firsts, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Kinks, Misunderstandings, Smut, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, soft dominant, relationships, Sexual Content, Slash, Slow Build, Safe Sane and Consensual, this is just me wanting soft praise kinks with sugar daddy themes, Willy getting the pampering he deserves, Angst, Neurodiversity, Neurodiverse Willy Wonka, ADHD Willy Wonka, Autistic Willy Wonka, But those are just headcanon not plotpoints, Edgeplay, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Delay, Restraints, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Sugar baby Willy Wonka, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, More of an ADHD thing?, Service Top, Service top Felix Fickelgruber (Wonka), Aftercare, Daddy Kink, Inexperienced Willy Wonka, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Good BDSM Etiquette, Self-Doubt, Slow Burn, Anal Beads, Spanking, breath play, Felix 'Call Me Daddy' Fickelgruber, Cockwarming, Edging, one bar prison, Blindfolds, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, Naked Male Clothed Male, Subspace, Kink Discovery Series: Part 1 of Simply Quid Pro Quo Summary: Used to being in control during his working life, Willy wants (needs) someone to take control of his life outside of the inventing room. But trying to juggle his wants and desires without risking his dream may prove to be more tricky than he had anticipated. Felix likes to be in control. A man of power, he’s not used to hearing no. Everybody has a price. Everyone. There’s no way some upstart chocolate maker would dare do anything but roll over for Fickelgruber, is there? Submissive Willy Wonka, soft sugar daddy dominant Felix Fickelgruber. We have smut, plot, more smut, and an eventual happy ending guaranteed.

[stormtide-leviathan]

I’m currently watching through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve watched through this show fully like, twice before, not to mention watching tons and tons of episodes nonsequentially.

I just watched an episode I swear I have *never* seen before. I just watched it with my mom who also had no memory, and she watched it through with me as well as on her own. It had multiple plot-significant events that missing would be very noticeable, as they’re built on and referenced in the following episodes, not to mention how the next episode literally picks up right where the last one left off. Even if I did skip over it in the past how did I not notice that and go back? I’m so confused

[contentment-of-cats]

Dear Brain. WTAF are you doing?

All through my diagnosis last February until very recently, I can't remember any dreams I might have had. It's possible I didn't have any, but I don't think it's likely. Lately, it's as if the dream factory has resumed production, and it's of a product that wakes me up and keeps me up for a few hours after. They're not nightmares, though some of them edge that, but just so strange that I have to wake up to parse and digest them.

There's a lot below the cut. Total brain dump.

The oddest ones are of a pastiche of places I've been and lived. Familiar enough, but also strangely assembled. An apartment with more rooms than make sense, or a city familiar enough but one where I get lost when things are not where they ought to be. There are people in these dreams that I know in the dreams, they're familiar, but when I wake up I lose who they are. My dreams have always been vivid, but these are unsettling.

During my last depressive episode, there was a point where I questioned my own reality. I lacked belief in my own existence. It was a throwback to when I was a kid at home, and I'd pretend what was happening was happening to someone else to the point where I would have the illusion of leaving my body. I remember an incident where my mother wasn't satisfied with how I was washing my face - I was in early adolescence and has having a spate of acne - and she put me in a chokehold to use an abrasive scrubbing pad on my face. I have no memory of anything after that. I assume that I overwrote my own memory. It took me decades to remember that - and my mother admitted to doing it after claiming that I made it up, then saying that it wasn't really like that.. Maybe there's enough unprocessed trauma in there that I'm in for an interesting few months. I talked about this yesterday with my medical trauma therapist, and she has asked me if I still doubt the reality of my own existence, if that's how I got through treatment and surgery, and I had to say that I didn't know.

I strove to live in the moment, to let the things happening to me pass around me like water around a rock. I don't think or believe that I was strong, or a warrior, or tough. I think that I survived somehow when others didn't or couldn't. My docs say I came out better because I was heavy going in and I had that cushion - essentially carrying extra weight (fat) saved me. I had people around me who helped, supported, and sent me loving energy - and it was a revelation that so many cared. I finally was able to know my own reality.

I don't know what's next. I am in remission - or have what I prefer to call Schrodinger's cancer. I know that if the cancer comes back, the chances that I will get another remission decrease. I have to be at peace with that to live. And if I am going to live, I am going to treasure every moment I have. Even in my dreams, maybe I need to say that life is too short.

Thank you for reading this brain barf, brought to you by nonsequential sleeping patterns, gabapentin, and ever-decreasing doses (YES!) of oxycodone. I made focaccia, have cold brew, and am spending the day reading, napping with cats, and writing.

[apoclyptics]

( 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐘𝐍 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 ) ⸻ have you heard about FAYE HAYNES ? she lives at the qz. i think they've lived there for twenty three years. they're twenty six years old and seem very SYMPATHETIC. i've also heard they can be very IMPULSIVE as well. they've been assigned as a bartender. they often daydream about 𝑎 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑, 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑠ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠.

name:  faye elizabeth haynes.

nicknames:  fox.

preferred name:  fox.

age:  twenty six.

date of birth: september 28th, 1997.

starsign:  libra.

faceclaim:  madelyn cline.

hair colour:  blonde / dirty blonde.

eye colour:  green.

height: 5 foot, 1 and ⅔ inches.

occupation:  bartender in the pittsburg qz.

hometown:  cranberry, pennslyvania.

children: none.

tattoos: none.

piercings:  two lobe piercings.

signature scent:  straight whiskey and malted milk.

parents: jeremiah haynes ( deceased, cordyceps. cause of death: bullet. ) and eleanor haynes ( deceased, cordyceps. cause of death: bullet. )

siblings: sister, wanted connection.

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝚁  𝙸𝙽𝚂𝙿𝙾:     100%  -  81% ,  oberyn  martell  (  game  of  thrones  )  ,  daenerys  targaryen  (  game  of  thrones  )  ,  dominic  toretto  (  fast  &  furious  )  ,  stitch  (  lilo  &  stitch  )  .  80%  -  61% ,  michaela  banes  (  transformers  )  ,  nymphadora  tonks  (  harry  potter  )  ,  octavia  blake  (  the  100  )  ,  maddy  perez  (  euphoria  )  60%  -  50%,  ellie  sattler  (  jurassic  park  )  ,  mia  torretto  (  fast  &  furious  )

TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, guns.

𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊

how is it you can want for something when you can't remember it ? children have little memory to begin with, but it's a cruel would i suppose, when a child doesn't know the feel of her mothers arms, doesn't remember the sound of her fathers voice. it can be such a cruel world. faye haynes doesn't remember any of that. september twenty eighth, 1997, it's a day nonsequential to anyone really, it's possible to some, but to the haynes family, of cranberry, pennsylvania, it was a joyous day.

perhaps it's because it's so unexpected, the family knows nothing of what's too come and perhaps that's what makes it so devastating. but the first three years of faye's life, while with no memory, they were just as they were suppose to be. white picket fence, two kids and a dog, everything was perfect. how can things become so disastrous so easily ? is it really true that disaster breed kindness.

what's a three year old to do in an apocalyptic outbreak ?

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐈𝐓𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

it was just a normal day, until the amber alert started, well. it wasn't really, the day had been explosive, there was an agitation in the air. but a child her age would never understand. to preoccupied with her toys, breakfast lay untouched, the toast buttered and gone cold left alone, to the point that eleanor ate it herself. that was her downfall.

they say it started in the flour, in the bread, in the many foods that contained flour. and it spread from their, an infection that altered the brain, feasted on flesh from within, caused an almost rage that no one understood. and the unseen twitch. that twitch became a scowl, and soon her mother was lost. the infection quickly spread through the haynes parental figures to the point of madness when the full outbreak was released. the eldest of the two children gathered faye in her arms and scurried as well as she could, away from the monstrous creatures their parents had become.

they were so close, so close to not knowing life as it became, a hovering, snarling monster lingered above the girls, fayes head buried inwards, sobbing in fear that she didn't understand why daddy was acting this way. and a sister who clamped her eyes shut and prayed that this wouldn't hurt. but it was a gunshot that rang out, the hovering mess over jeremiah haynes collapsed, the life that had been taken, drained from his eyes. another gun shot rang out, echoing in the quiet street, but the body of eleanor haynes was soon to hit the ground.

the two girls, like princess' in the stories you tell your children were rescued by a knight in shining armour, and they clung to him as if he were their only hope.

𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐏 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐙.

there's a bleakness in their years, days of walking, sobbing and whining led them to a barely constructed safe zone. they clung to a man they barely knew, they clung to the hope that this was their saviour, but there lives were completely different.

fedra schools were like orphanages and schools all rolled into one, and faye had ended up there, the first memory she has, a clear memory, is one of fear for the stranger, not the man that brought them to the place that would become her home, but rather the uniformed guard with the gun strapped to his chest. he scared her.

they tried, to make a solider out of this girl. but how could they do something like that ? disaster in her breeds with kindness. faye haynes could not be broken by them. she was no solider, always apologetic, always kind. she was clumsy and awkward, all knees and elbows as a girl and that was no good to them.

she did have a knack for sneaking out and in of places, so much so she garnered the name fox, and it was something she carried with her like a badge. as each year passed, fox grew into a women, until she eventually was no longer a child. her sister came and went as she pleased, but fox preferred the stability ( if a quarantine zone could be considered stable ) eventually she aged out of the school, no fedra uniform, no want to join the fireflies. but rather, a girl with a glass half full attitude wanting to make the best of what she had, landing a long standing job as a bartender, she's been content to just live her life as it was.

[pheexblack]

Fanfic Update

Since my writing is nonsequential, I'm excited that I just finished a chapter that's ready to be published BUT it's not the next thing that readers need to see. So now I gotta force myself to write that chapter before it and hope I can make something interesting that contributes to the story instead of filler. Pretty sure I have ADHD. I ALSO JUST STARTED ANOTHER COLLEGE CLASS WHY AM I WRITING FANFIC?!

Anyway would love feedback from anyone interested in reading it.

[primeministerofantarctica]

There's a lot of trigger warnings so I'm not going to put the text here but directory commentary for the first scene of Ch. 4 of The Truth Can Run But Not Hide? Please?

Sure!

Shadow dreamed, like he always did, of falling.

Falling past red skies and concrete buildings. Falling through a black expanse, reaching up as the ARK got farther and farther away; pale blue and blonde and red still visible in the windows long after it shouldn't be. Falling, watching the stars and buildings and meteors and trees and clouds rush past and the ground grew closer and closer until-

^ this might be a bit of a spoiler, but Shadow falling is also a thing relevant to the third-movie storyline (which will be covered more in-depth later). also i wanted the list to be purposefully nonsequential - seeing stars then trees then clouds - to really highlight the otherworldly dreamlike state.

He looked around the room. It was early - his internal clock told him it was 4:37, before most working humans got out of bed. Time was a fickle concept in the ARK, where all lights were artificial, but Maria always complained if he tried to wake her up before eight AM.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

^ shadow being a Spaceship Baby is so fascinating to me. would he have an internal clock? what's his circadian rhythm like? much to ponder. also, first clue that This Maria is an externalization of Shadow's own psyche and not an actual ghost (which is. very important to differentiate), this one's not complaining about getting up early.

Shadow hugged the blanket to his chest, purposefully not looking at the corner of the room. "Go away," he mumbled.

Out of his peripheral vision, Shadow saw the shadowy figure glitch and phase out of existence, like a bad horror movie. His shoulders slumped. Maybe it would actually leave him alone today.

^ hallucinations are pretty terrifying, i imagine :( (disclaimer, i don't have them myself). he's trying so hard to deal with it but unfortunately interacting is only making them stronger.

Then Maria appeared right in front of him, all rosy cheeks and bouncing yellow curls, smiling widely despite the blood soaking through the front of her dress. Shadow jumped back, suppressing a scream.

^ second clue! i tried describing This maria in very healthy? terms. rosy cheeks, bouncy curls. we both know the real maria wouldn't have looked like that. this is an extremely idealized version of her.

"You're going to try to run away again, aren't you? You should. You've gotten so close the last eight times." Maria drawled sarcastically. Except it wasn't Maria, Maria would never be so cruel. At least, Shadow thought.

He was definitely going to run away, though. But not because she - because it had told him to.

^ shadow knows this isn't maria, but his mental health is way too messed up to be making any clear judgment calls. he still tries to make sure not to validate it's existence though.

Whipple had a small backyard, only half an acre with some cheap plastic lawn chairs and a grill he hadn't touched in the time Shadow had been staying here. Shadow walked to the edge of the property, where the grass ended and the Montana woods began. He was going to get out of here if it killed him.

^ fun fact, I went to the sonic wiki to see if i could find a page on wade's house since it was in the second movie. there is! not much info on the backyard, but i imagine him as the kind of guy who wants to have barbecues but can't because everyone makes up excuses not to go. rip.

Shadow hissed. Every molecule of his leg was on fire and it was getting worse. He shuffled forward. The sensation was spreading to his chest and arms. Keep going, keep going-

His legs buckled underneath him. Shadow reached with his hands, clawing at the pinestraw. His vision was growing fuzzy. If he could just drag himself far enough away, if he could just get out-

^ em dashes my overly used loves lol.

"Shadow?" Whipple set him down inside the property line. "What are you- oh, not again. Come on, dude, GUN's going to kill me," he groaned. Shadow crossed his arms. He had been so close! He'd actually made it a whole yard this time!

^ wade...DOES care about shadow, in his own way, but he's still at the point of seeing him as the "dangerous" (read: edgy) government experiment he's obligated to babysit. shadow doesn't think very highly of him either, since he internally calls him by his last name instead of wade. it helps create a sense of distance.

too bad they're not actually getting that distance 😌✌️

[eldritchcuddles]

October Wordcount Tracking

Total October Wordcount:  4710 words

Posted: There’s a place I’ve seen where the soul burns clean, chapter 3

IN PROGRESS:

   There’s a place I’ve seen where the soul burns clean:  4710 words + a BUNCH of editing holy fuck writing nonsequentially means so much follow up work you guys 0____0

Nothing on any other WIPs this month, but it was a crazy month so I'm satisfied that I made as much progress as I did.

Sneak Peeks:

>There's a place I've seen where the soul burns clean<

"You said it, not me." "I said it, but you didn't argue," Izuna retorted, nabbing a snack from the plate Hikaku brought in.

"I don't see a reason to argue about your elder brother's hair care habits." Struck by an idea, Izuna answered, "Or you could just say that he doesn't look like a walking haystack, we're playing, I'm not expecting a scholarly treatise here." "How fortunate for me," she said dryly, and turned back to her reading. "When your little brother said you can't lie - it would be more accurate to say that you can't say things that aren't true, isn't it?" Hikaku asked, returning with a tray of tea and snacks to go with whatever correspondence he deemed non-sensitive enough to have open around an outsider. Just like that, Haruka's porcelain-smooth mask slotted back into place, seamless by the time that she had fully raised her head from the scroll she was reading. "That is the usual meaning of 'lying', yes?" Hikaku didn't glance his way, but he didn't need to; he could read the sudden hunting tension in the air as well as Izuna (as well as Haruka probably could too, if she felt the need to withdraw so obviously). Hikaku took point, a quick, smug flick of watch and learn in his fingers as he spoke. Hikaku gave her one of his terrifying smiles, the gentleness of the expression reaching nowhere near his eyes. "I think we both know that there is some flexibility to the definition, Haruka-san." "This conversation is very philosophical for a joke about your clan head's hair." Izuna smiled. That wasn't an answer, and the blatant dodge clearly implied... Madara walked in just then, the perfect demonstration. Izuna choked down the budding hilarity and challenged her, "Say it, then." Haruka's mask relaxed just enough to allow a scowl through without cracking her face, and she remained stubbornly silent. Madara looked between them and Izuna couldn't contain himself any longer. "Don't mind us, Nii-san," he managed to choke out between snickers. "We're just confirming some points of intel." "Madara-sama's resemblance to a haystack is hardly news," Hikaku said, earning himself a thunderous look from Madara that he returned blandly. "However, the parameters of Haruka-san's reported inability to lie may be of interest." "And the fact that she agrees!" Izuna gasped, and then sat back and laughed until tears came to his eyes. Haruka looked from the two of them in varying states of smugness up to Madara, standing there scowling and slightly off balance. "I would complain that I'm being bullied, Madara-san, but I see have nothing to complain about in comparison." Madara snorted and stole Izuna's snack, ignoring his belated squawk of outrage. "I recommend throwing them in the koi pond." Haruka looked over at Hikaku and Izuna, sizing them both up pointedly. Hikaku gave her another bone-chilling smile, and Izuna winked. It had been a while since he had gotten to tease Madara like this. It felt homey, in a way that their house seldom did with the day to day crises of this way. The armistice had been good for them for this much, at least. "...I might have to make some modifications to that approach."

[wedding-shemp]

Whatever I'm a big phony. I haven't been a regular monthly comic reader since i took a break in like 2017. I think at this point I've been a lapsed comics reader than I ever was a comic reader lmao

[videogamelover99]

The Oracle

A/N: I bring you the thing I had wanted to write in like forever: the saltiest reunion yet. But come on, did you really think I’d leave this character out? Not a chance.

Based on Flat Dreams by @pengychan. AU by @doodledrawsthings. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2 

“He is awake.”

“So soon?” Jheselbraum casts a look at at dimension 46’/, where Mabel Pines reaches to shake the hand of the monster they defeated only a year or so ago. “I would have expected at least a few more centuries.”

“I’m sure you know that time is relative.” The is a tone of amusement in the Ancient’s words. “It has been a lot longer than that.”

The Oracle takes that in, watching the events in Stanford’s home dimension play out, and hums in amusement, “‘A different form’,” she repeats to herself, “You couldn’t resist the irony, could you?”

The Axolotl chuckles, “Rather fitting, considering the many times humanity was deceived by him.”

“And who brought him to his demise.” she mutters. It is strange, seeing the used to be triangle in a completely different form, and she feels a certain satisfaction when he starts to panic, staring at his newfound body in shock. That’s when Mabel Pines finally collects herself, putting her grappling hook to good use. “Looks like the universe is giving its tormentor a warm welcome.”

Another chuckle. “What will you do now?”

She shrugs, her gaze still aimed at the two small Pines twins as they argue on what to do. She’d waited for a trillion years to see her mistakes paid for. And now, when Bill Cipher is finally getting what’s coming for him, she can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. Interfering now seems too soon. She’ll stay, and wait her turn. For now, she has her own personal comedy to watch. If the Pines family handles him as well as they had so far, then she has nothing to worry about. Besides, she has a feeling her meeting with Bill Cipher wasn’t that far away. A brief glimpse in the future tells her as much.

Then she’ll rub his loss in his eye. Or eyes. Seems like he has two now.

“I’ll stay.” she answers finally, turning to her friend. “A confrontation now doesn’t seem all that appealing.”

“It’s your choice.” the Axolotl seems to have expected that from her. He gives a farewell nod before leaving. The temple seems quiet now, but it doesn’t matter. There is a calm relief, now that Bill would not be posing a threat to anyone. And a certain anticipation, an emotion the Oracle hadn’t felt in a very long time. She will wait, then. After a trillion years, waiting doesn’t seem that hard at all.

…

“Wait, so you’re the one that helped my uncle defeat Bill, right?”

“That would be me, yes.” Dipper Pines is, as Jheselbraum soon finds out, extremely likable. He’s smart, resourceful, and has a thirst for knowledge not unlike that of his great uncle. In only a few hours the boy manages to ask enough questions to fill a star system. She tries her best answering all of them, seeing as how they are somewhat predictable, yet some just have her at a loss of words.

“Can I get your autograph??”

“Um…”

“NEVERMIND THAT!” Mabel literally jumps in the conversation, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Tell me, if you’re really an oracle, how come you don’t speak in rhyme?”

“Mabel, this isn’t Percy Johnson-”

“Shush, this is an important question.”

While the younger Pines twin is subdued but thoughtful, the older one is the complete opposite. She’s loud, lively, and a welcome change to the usual quiet of the temple. Unlike her brother, the questions Mabel asks are often slightly absurd even for the Oracle.

“It would be a pointless amount of effort to do so.”

The girl seems to think it over, then nods approvingly. “Fair enough. Okay, but why are you purple?”

“…Symbolism.”

Mabel gives another satisfied nod, “Gotcha.” Her brother looks even more confused.

The Oracle’s attention is briefly torn away from the children as she casts an unimpressed look at the balcony, where her third visitor sits with his back to her, trying his best to ignore all three of them. “He’s always like that.” Mabel supplies. “Plus, you know, you kinda helped defeat him and all that junk. He’s probably still mad about that.”

“Of course.” Her tone turns cold, and the twins seem to flinch slightly at that. The Oracle noticeably softens her demeanor. “Why don’t you two go explore?” she asks instead, careful to keep her voice friendly. Often times she ends up intimidating the mortals she converses with, and while that’s understandable, it mostly makes her conversation with them…awkward. She’s sure not to make the same mistake with the Pines children.

Judging by the brightened looks on both of their faces, that shouldn’t be a problem. “Oh, we did,” Dipper confesses eagerly, “though most of your books aren’t in English, so kinda hard to..read. I wrote some stuff down though, so-”

“And I found a lazer gun!” Mabel cuts off her brother, “Or I think it was a lazer gun. Maybe it’s a can opener…it looks like a gun. And you’ve got a lot of weird gadgets, lady. Where do you get them all, some kinda sci-fi black market?”

“Yes, a lot of the parts come from…interesting places.” she smiles, the two lower eyes crinkling in amusement. The girl’s enthusiasm seems to be contagious, and the Oracle doesn’t mind at all.

“Wait, so what kind of stuff do you actually have? Can you show me? I mean, you don’t have to I just- yeah sorry, it’s just so cool.”

That is flattering, extremely so, despite the fact that the boy is slowly running out of air. “I’ll be glad to show you sometime, but for now, I’m sure you’d want to see what the rest of this dimension is like.” The Oracle gestures toward the balcony, where far below them the valley extends into the fading sun on the horizon. The village lights were just starting to appear, blinking serenely in the distance.

The two human children stare at her dimension in silence, before Mabel brakes it with a whoop of joy. “YES! Wait…” she glances back down at the settlement warily, “It’s not gonna be like last time, right? Cause we kinda pissed off an alien princess, and then these giant buff guards started chasing us. Through one of them was kinda cute…”

“Correction, Bill pissed her off.” Dipper glares at the figure who made himself comfortable on her terrace.

“Bill pisses everybody off.” the boy’s twin shrugs. “I don’t know what’s so surprising.”

“Good point.”

After she assures them that her dimension is one of the safest they could possibly visit, Jheselbraum  hands both of them translators and sends them on their way. To think that the two were running around without one. No wonder their journey hadn’t been that pleasant.

The woman finally turns her attention to the elephant in the room. Bill Cipher. The monster she’d worked most of her trillion year old life to defeat is now sitting on her stoop like it’s nothing, so the least she could do is give him a nice warm welcome. The Oracle fixes her seven-eyed stare on the back of his head, silently watching. The tension in the room winds up, ready to burst as soon as one of them speaks. Of course, the one that eventually does is Bill. “Whatever you gotta say, say it already.” he doesn’t turn around, but she can tell by his tone he is angry. That is not surprising in the least.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Oh come on! What, don’t even wanna gloat about anything? That stupid piece of metal in Sixer’s head, maybe? Or maybe that unicorn spell you were so eager to share with him? Don’t think I didn’t notice it was you.” the demon finally turns around to give her a humorless sneer. Jheselbraum, in turn, keeps her expression calm, devoid of any fury she might be feeling right now. That only seems to fuel his own anger. “Let me guess: the big frilly got you those eyes, didn’t he? I betcha you’re one of the guys whose dimensions I freed, right? And you were pissed because you couldn’t take a little change. So he offered you some kinda deal, to “stop his chaos”, yada yada, and you took it because you were so eager to play hero. Did I get it right? I bet I did, didn’t I?” he fixes her a mirthless smile. It seems like Cipher tried his hardest to find the words that would best get a reaction out of her. To be fair, it was a pretty good try. But considering that it’s exactly what the Oracle expects from him, it doesn’t prove to be very effective.

“Yes. I suppose there’s some truth in it.” As tempted as she is, she doesn’t mention that the dimension he destroyed was hers as well. So far, Bill Cipher did not give any hint that he knows her identity. She’d like to keep it that way, for the time being. It’s interesting to see how long it will take until he figures it out. Perhaps he won’t. It has been a trillion years after all, easy for him to forget. “Though some respect could be shown for the Ancient. He’s the reason you’re still here, after all.”

“Oh yeah, thanks! Feels great to be me again! Except I’m not, am I?” Bill raises his voice almost to the point of shouting, and it echoes through the temple, leaving an uncomfortable heat in the air. “SO YEAH, THANKS FOR PUTTING ME IN THIS USELESS SKIN PUPPET.”

“The alternative would be death.” Though you deserve a lot worse than that.

Bill falls silent, turning away abruptly to stare at the valley below. It isn’t hard to guess what he is thinking, she spent too much time observing him not to know. In this body he is mortal, the maximum he could live is 6 or 7 more decades. A long time for most, but for beings like themselves, it was nothing but a blink. To Bill, this form is nothing but prolonging the inevitable. No doubt it scares him.

Good.

“So, which dimension was it, anyway?” he asks suddenly, faking amusement. “22? 1.357? 666/513? Oooh, I bet it was one of those flowery, happy-go-lucky ones like this one, huh? Too bad it’s ALL GONE NOW. The nightmare realm’s got more use for it than the idiots that lived there.” he pauses, turning to stare viciously in all seven of her eyes. “And you’re still here, taking the ‘moral highroad’ or whatever. Helping people. And what did they ever do for you, huh? Nothing. Soon enough they’ll forget all about you, because mortals only care about what concerns them. So you’ve ‘defeated me’, congrats. Here’s a gold star, you’re free to go. What now, Seven-Eyes? Too bad nobody knows what you did, right? Nobody cares. You’ll just stay here, alone, dancing to his tune. Hope you’re HAPPY about that.” Jheselbraum casts long, cold look back at the demon. It seems that the horrifying one-eyed beast is now reduced to nothing but a pathetic kicked puppy, whose bark is far worse than his bite. Though the Oracle has to admit, it’s a bit impressive. For him, this is technically the first time they’ve ever met, and Cipher still finds something about her that actually hits its mark.

There’s a temptation to march over to the demon and shake him, to give him a harsh reminder that the only reason he is still alive is because of the mercy of those whom he has wronged. To rub his loss in his face, to remind him that he is nothing but a pathetic little man now, with not even a scrap of the power he had before. Nora wants to take all those millennia of hurt and hopelessness and anger and hurl it back in his stupid ignorant face, and make him feel at least a fraction of what she felt because of him. That was what she had planned to do.

But something holds her back.

Spotting the hesitancy, Bill looks ready to spout something else, but loses his nerve when she shoots one look at him. The Oracle finds herself fiddling with her pendant, a nervous habit she had developed a few millenia ago. It catches the demon’s eye, and from the corner of her vision she can see him staring at it, an unreadable look on his face. She drops her hand, leaving to tinker with one of her personal projects, though her attention is elsewhere, and the action seems more like a need to keep herself busy than anything else. After an eternity of waiting, that method of occupying her time seems common to her. All she does is wait, and the Oracle can’t help but feel frustrated just at the familiarity of it. She waited most of her existence to see Bill Cipher defeated, and waited for the right moment to rub that defeat in his face. But now, she can’t even bring herself to say anything, and the waiting game begins anew. Except now she is waiting for the twins to come back, and hopefully distract her from the thoughts of the past that keep on surfacing, despite her best efforts to snuff them out.

And, as if to her own silent plea, the children do come back, holding an assortment of trinkets that they seem to have acquired free of charge and chatting amiably with each other. “You’re such a nerd, Dip Dop!”

“Hey! This thing could be really useful, you know?” Dipper waves a small book around, and Jheselbraum could just make out the title: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Multiverse.

Well. At least he would get a laugh out of it. Once the disappointment clears away.

“Besides,” the boy continues, “who gets a freaking pillow when they visit another dimension?”

“Actually,” the Oracle gestures at the woven mass of cloth in Mabel’s arms, “It’s a bagpipe.”

“Ooh,” the girl looks down at her new-found souvenir. “So like an interdimensional bagpipe?”

“No, a regular one.” The two blink simultaneously down at the object.

“How did it-”

“Who cares!” Mabel squeezes the instrument in a strange sort of hug, making it emit a small tooting noise. “I’m keeping it!”

“Alright, just make sure not to break it.” the Oracle smiles at the girl. Yes, Mabel Pines is extremely likable. There is a sort of nostalgic feel she can’t shake away when taking to the child, though in all honesty she cannot place where it’s coming from. “I believe it is time for you to be heading back. Your family is extremely worried about you.”

“Oh man,” Dipper drops the books he’s been holding and grips the sides of the hunting hat he’s wearing. “The Grunkles! They’re probably freaking out right now. Mabel, we gotta go back! Uh-” he turns to her pleadingly. “How do we go back?”

The Oracle reaches for something cluttered among the shelves that she’s been saving a while ago for this exact occasion. She hands it to the boy carefully. “These are dimensional scissors. They would be able to get you back to your dimension safely. But,” she explains as the two twins look at them quizzically. “These are only good for three uses. So please don’t go joyriding.”

“Aye aye, captain!” Mabel salutes playfully. “Hey Bill, quit sulking, it’s time to go home!” The demon, who left her balcony a while ago to stare at the hydrodisplacer she had assembled a few weeks before with mild interest, turns to look back at the girl with a confused sort of frown. “Home?”

“You know, the Shack!”

“Oh, right.”

Dipper inspects the scissors. “It looks like one of those kiddie ones for arts and crafts. Uh, no offence,” he remarks quickly at her, blushing in embarrassment, “It’s just- how do you use them? Just cut the air or-?”

Bill stanches them away with an annoyed growl, dismissively slicing through the fabric of reality, leaving behind a glowing blue cut where spacetime had divided to provide a pathway through. “Great, LET’S GO.”

“Wait!” Mabel looks back at the woman, still clutching the slightly battered bagpipe. “We’ll meet again, right?”

Jheselbraum winks with three of her eyes. “Sooner than you think.”

The girl beams, waving one last time, before fearlessly dragging a nervous looking Dipper and an impatient looking Bill right through the portal.

“I’ll be watching you, Norm.” The demon freezes at the nickname, turning around to look back at her in newfound shock. Or more exactly, at her pendant. His eyes then dart up to her face, a realization in them that is hard not to catch on to. He opens his mouth to say something, only to be dragged into the portal by Mabel’s impatient grip. The Oracle watches the three disappear, and then the rip in reality closes, leaving the temple quiet and empty once again.

And for the first time in a trillion years, she breaks down laughing.

…

A week passes by before Bill Cipher finally returns, dimensional scissors in hand and looking ten times more livid than before.

“I take it you’ve figured it out by now.” She says, calmly watching the demon out of the corner of her bottom left eye. Cipher looks like he’s just about ready to break something, and her relaxed demeanor only seems to fuel his unrelenting anger. She tries not to smile in amusement.

“I thought you were dead.”

The last word seems to hover heavily in the air for a moment, and the Oracle blinks in surprise, turning around fully to stare back at her visitor. Enacouraged by her stunned silence, Bill keeps going, his volume growing with every word. “A TRILLION YEARS, and not even a ‘hey Bill, how’s it going? By the way, I’m totally fine, living it up in my fancy mansion on a freaking mountain, not a pile of dust and ashes at all, WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT?’ SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL, NORA?”

She pushes back her surprise and tries not to wince at that name, the one she hadn’t heard in quite a while. “Is that what you are mad about?”

“Oh trust me, I’ve got a whole list. THAT just takes the cake. I thought you were dead, and you just show up like it’s no big deal with your-haha-” he cuts himself off with laughter, gripping a nearby column to keep himself upright. “Wow, okay. The whole ‘wise, ancient oracle’ shtick? Real clever of ya, Nora, hard to guess it was you under all that.” he sobers up then, renewing his glare.

“That’s not my name anymore.” she remarks, watching as he sputters indignantly.

“No your- are you serious?” Bill throws his hands up. “That’s THE MOST CLICHE THING I EVER HEARD YOU SAY. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM, SOME B-RATED SOAP OPERA??” He points an accusing finger in her direction. “OH YEAH, LIKE ‘JHESELBRAUM’ IS WAY BETTER. IS YOUR LAST NAME YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS, TOO?”

She blinks, considering how off kilter this conversation is going. Then again, this is Bill. “I…don’t think that’s relevant.”

“NO IT ISN’T! But you wanna know what is? YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!”

This is a little more of what she had expected. Jheselbraum’s expression turns from surprised to cold once again. “Actually, I believe I’ve succeeded.” The way he opens and closes his mouth, not knowing what to say, makes her snort under her breath. “What, the great Bill Cipher has nothing to say now? And here I thought you were a maser with words.” She looks away to examine the edge of her sleeve. “I guess dying changed that.”

“YOU- WHY WOULD-”

“Why do you think?” The spark of anger, the one that’s been death for so long finally ignites, and burns in a cold, unmasked fury as the Oracle slowly walks up to him. Bill notices the change, and almost subconsciously backs away a few steps as she looms over him. “I watched dimensions burn and people die just because you thought it might be fun. Do you know how many I’ve met that suffered because of you? Stanford Pines was no where near the worst case, oh no. There were people whose minds you’ve shattered completely because you felt like it. Beings whose scars were too deep to ever heal, and I had to put them back together again. So many I’ve watched that suffered because of my mistake, because I believed what you promised me. And what did you promise me, Bill?”

Make it worth something.

I will.

“Well, did you?”

Bill, who had been glaring at her as she talked, flinches away at that as if she were yelling, despite her voice being only slightly above a whisper. He looks to the side, biting his lip and not saying a word, and even though her mind is now clouded with anger Jheselbraum can’t help but notice how strange it is. The scenario she had seen had Bill yell back at her, defending the chaos he created, and giving her an excuse to throw him off her mountain.

He does none of those things, and it strikes the Oracle just how different this seems to be from how he had acted a week ago. And she berates herself for all this time not even taking a glance at Gravity Falls, because she has no idea what could have possibly happened to make him act this way.

“So, you’re not happy about that.”

Jheselbraum blinks down at him, and resists the sudden urge to laugh. “Now why would you think that?” she asks, the anger no longer present. She is still looming over him, and Bill only seems tense, something between fear and disappointment in his expression. The Oracle takes a small moment to note just how small he is compared to her. Nothing like the terrifying demon he made himself to be. She steps back finally, giving him space to breathe. Bill straightens out, only to fiddle with the sleeve of his sweater awkwardly. The bright yellow color and the big, black eye on the front has Mabel’s handiwork written all over it. That girl is a bit too open, a bit to accepting for her own good. “If you have something to say to me, say it now. Those scissors only have one more use, after all.”

That is an unsubtle message to get out. Bill takes it without comment. “You kept it.” he says instead, gazing at the pendant she’s wearing. The original grey has been gone for a long time, replaced with an intense dark purple that seems to absorb all light. So he still remembers it as well, despite how different it looks now. She regards the necklace with a detached sort of acceptance and offers him no explanation, partly because she is tired, the anger draining most of her energy, and partly because she has none. “You can go now,” is all she says instead. “The sun is almost rising.”

“Fine.” He says not without a hint of rejection. There is a sound of reality splitting at the seams, and then he is gone.

Jheselbraum gazes at the brightening hizon, watching as the sun showers Dimension 52 in a gentle golden glow. Her grip is on her pendant. It’s like the layers of hurt she kept buried for eons had emerged again, and the Oracle doesn’t quite know what to do. So she stares at the valley down below, and tries not to think about the conversation that just happened.

“He is still angry.” Well, that proves to be futile, and she turns to face her second visitor with a small frown. The Axolotl makes a sound not unlike a sigh, and his presence does seem to soothe the soothsayer somewhat. “I’m sure you aren’t very surprised at that.”

“What…happened?” she asks instead, eyes still directed at the horizon line. She absentmindedly rubs her pendant, and realizes that she is anxious. “Why is he-?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him that yourself.” she could hear the slight smile in the being’s voice. “His bubble cracked, and of course the All-Seeing Eye was not left unscathed. No matter what he wishes you to believe.” He regards her patiently for a while, before his gentle voice breaks the silence once again. “Will you join them?”

Jheselbraum finally tears away from the scene outside to look at the piece of parchment that had made it to her only a short time ago. Stanford Pines had found a way to reach a dimension as remote as hers, and the Oracle can’t help but be impressed. “In a while,” she replies, hand on her pendant once again. “I…need to think.”

There is a silent acknowledgement, and then she is alone again. One of the few things Bill had gotten right simply by looking at her. In the silence, there is finally nothing to distract the Oracle from her concerns, and for once the concerns are about the past as much as they are about the future. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. The future still worried her a whole lot more, and for good reason. The Oracle makes the mistake of, once again, glancing at what lies ahead.

And sees nothing but flames.

[dragoncityinteriordesign]

When Zhao Yunlan finally goes to investigate Lin Jing's potential treachery, he does so by comparing the empty bag that the syringe should have been in to the log sheet. Thanks to @bisouette's crackerjack language skills, I have some translations of the log sheet:

Column headings: (serial) number, evidence origin, evidence name, amount, case progress/situation, results, inspector

#095-097: Drunken Murder Case; sharp knife, fruit knife, long knife; case confirmed; Inspectors Wang Zuojun, Da Qing #317-[323]: Kong Jing case; syringe, drill, feather duster, steel saw, steel [something], rope, electric saw; case confirmed; Inspector Da Qing [...]: glove; case awaiting confirmation; Inspector Bai Jinyuan [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhu Hong [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhao Zhugang

And then the bag itself, with explanatory notes:

Case name: Kong Jing case Evidence name: syringe with needle Collection location: old street [something something] building Investigating unit: SID Collector [the one who found it]: Lin Jing Sealer [person who sealed the bag?]: Da Qing Deliver-er [person who passes it on]: Receiving analyst: Receiving analysis unit:

Well, that's all nice and -- wait a minute, who the hell are Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang?

And now we're at the reason I originally asked @bisouette to look at this for me. I've mentioned before that my grasp of Chinese is beyond shaky, but by this point in the process, I can reliably read the names of all the main characters -- and these are not the names of the main characters.

Obviously the numbering system is nonsequential, which means that Wang Zhojun might be an employee from any time in the past decade, as long as Da Qing's been around. However, two of them have been busy recently: This is from episode 27; the Kong Jing case (AKA the Great Personality Caper) was episode 25. That means that somewhere in the interim, in the midst of wrangling Da Ji, SID also logged in at least eight new pieces of evidence, only three of which correspond to a case managed by someone we know.

On a meta level, I figure these are probably the names of some of the people who worked on the show, and those trusting fools figured no one would ever care enough to look closely. Ha! I sure showed them.

But when it comes to in-universe explanations? Go wild.

Theory 1: SID takes in all the weird shit anyone finds in Dragon City. Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang are employees of some other division, who, in the course of doing their otherwise mundane jobs, came across ooky spooky objects. These objects were collected and delivered to SID HQ, with the names of the original investigators preserved for future reference.

Theory 2: Despite what we see in the show, we are expected to understand that SID is actually a much larger division. All those "new" employees we see at the end have been there all along. However, Zhao Yunlan has chosen not to notice them, and we, experiencing the world through his protagonist's perspective, have not either.

Theory 3: Zhao Yunlan has concocted an entire roster of fake employees in an attempt to keep the funding coming in, and needs to keep putting their names on things to justify it all to payroll.

The possibilities are endless! And that's even without scratching the surface of what a Drunken Murder Case would entail, why it would be supernatural enough to warrant SID involvement, how that specific knife trio was involved, and whether those knives are or are not now being used for cutting up little fish in Lao Li's kitchenette (it's okay, he washed them real good first).

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

So, I've been reading HOS, My Eyes, nonsequential, HFY...

And I'm just stuck on how freaking good all Y/N are in each story.

If you had to rate them which ones are you favourite to least in personality anf backstory.

And which were the most fun and interesting for you to write to least!

Just a little random question from one of your biggest fan and lover of your writing

This is a very interesting question. I've said this before and have always been pretty transparent about this: but all of my reader inserts have a part of me in them. So I see them as just different versions of myself in a lot of ways. Maybe that's cringe to admit. But after all, I've always written the stories I wanted to read, so.

I don't think I have it in me to rank all of them. But I will share some of my thoughts and opinion on a few of them.

I would say that my least favorite is Y/N in My Eyes. Mostly because I am childless by choice and will always be, so I can't relate to her at all in her decision to keep a child. I would say she's also a bit more insecure – which I think makes her more relatable, but stops her from being my favorite.

My absolute favorite to write was Y/N in Recruit. I simply just wanted to write a completely badass female character. I didn't give a fuck if she was a Mary Sue or whatever misogynistic thing people say about powerful female characters. I just did what I want. And I still enjoy her just being a complete boss bitch.