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neopronouns-in-action · 8 months

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Before we begin, I highly recommend reading

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

(Project Gutenberg link, where you can read and download the book for free. You can also find many audiobook versions on youtube and the web archive)

(BTW, the word "romance" here is not referring to romantic love, it's the older version of the word that means a story with adventures and amazing quests.)

and

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul, by Leslie Feinberg

(Web archive link where you can read and listen to the book for free)

to best appreciate this short story.

___

Neopronouns in Action #062: Flatland Warriors: Ponder the Meaning of the Words, or, The Breaking Point.

The audiobook version of this story can be listened to here on the web archive: "https://archive.org/details/neopronouns-in-action/Neopronouns+in+Action+062+00+The+Breaking+Point+-+Context.mp3"

Neopronouns:

da/dar/darl/darkling

phi/phim/phis/phirself,

tuo/tuak/tuar/tuaresi,

Which all follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself:

Replace he with da, phi, or tuo

Replace him with dar, phim, or tuak

Replace his with darl, phis, or tuar

Replace himself with darkling, phirself, or tuaresi

EX:

"He is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as he gets a fence set up around his yard so the puppy can go outside without him having to walk it. His uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting him use, since he lost his. He's going to buy toys and train the puppy himself.”

Becomes:

"Da is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as da gets a fence set up around darl yard so the puppy can go outside without dar having to walk it. Darl uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting dar use, since da lost darl. Da's going to buy toys and train the puppy darkling.”

"Phi is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as phi gets a fence set up around phis yard so the puppy can go outside without phim having to walk it. Phis uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting phim use, since phi lost phis. Phi's going to buy toys and train the puppy phimself.”

"Tuo is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as tuo gets a fence set up around tuar yard so the puppy can go outside without tuak having to walk it. Tuar uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting tuak use, since tuo lost tuar. Tuo's going to buy toys and train the puppy tuaresi.”

= = =

Flyssa sighed as da rested in darl room, trying, unsuccessfully, to tune out the conversation da could hear from the doorway to the parlour.

Dearg had been forced to “invite” Lieutenant Kellite over for dinner after the lieutenant let slip several overt implications that Dearg could going to be accused, within the General's range of hearing, of impropriety if phi didn't prove that “He kept north a good, respectable house”, by spending the night plying phis superior officer with the best wines, meats, and deserts phis meager salary could afford.

Flyssa, of course, had no salary. Lines were not allowed to hold jobs, or own any property of their own. Da couldn't even go out to the market to buy groceries without an escort from either Dearg or one of phis polygon siblings or close cousins, or da would be arrested, most likely executed on the spot, and Dearg, having taken responsability for dar from darl father when they were married, would be charged with criminal negligence and attempted manslaughter.

Lines must be kept under the strictest control, you see, because they were dangerous and unpredictable. Being a line, they had only two faces, and two points, both sharper than the sharpest of trigons. Having no angles, they had no capacity for thought. They were barely even human.

All this was, of course, the reality mandated into law by the higher polygons. Started by those who proclaimed themselves cirles, and passed south, by force, through the descending ranks of the people forcibly labeled the lower classes.

Things had been like this longer than Flyssa had been alive, but not longer than darl grandna had been alive. When Flyssa had still been a child, and not old enough yet to be allowed to leave the house even with an escort, Grandna Tuokeli had told dar endless stories of what life was like before the Configurationists had come.

When tuo had been a child, when their country was still called by its true name of Ib-Wa, there had been no laws segregating people based on their numbers of sides, and lines had been allowed to do any job they wanted, they could go where they wanted, do anything anyone else could do. There were some tasks that only lines and the thinnest of triagonals could do, due to their thinner size allowing them to fit into smaller spaces than other shapes, but that was just how physical reality worked, it wasn't made north one day by a bigot and then mandated into law that pretended it had to be true by pure virtue of being a law.

And now Flyssa was an adult, darl grandna had had to flee the country several years past, and lines weren't even considered to be shapes at all, let alone shapes of equal value and ability as any other.

Dearg, mandated as a trigon of the lowest class, was regarded as only a single, miniscule step above Flyssa as far as the ruling powers were concerned. Phis angle, and thus, according to the Configurationists, brain, was so acute as to hardly exist. But it was an angle, and it did exist in its meagerness, and that was more than Flyssa had.

So Dearg was given the "honor" and "privilege" of serving in the Configurationist's army as a common foot soldier. The hours were long, the work gruelling, and those who did the work were regarded with complete disdain. The "equillateral" trigons who oversaw the "isoseles" were cruel, and viewed torture and execution for the smallest of infractions as "good old Circleday entertainment".

Bribes, such as the dinner Dearg was currently being forced to play host to, were a constant demand of the officers, further stripping the soldier caste of resources and putting them in constant debt. And if you refused to cave to the demands of your superior officer, or failed to supply them with the favors they demanded, it was inevitable that you would be the next one put in the torture block or publicly executed, with real mistakes blown out of proportion, or fabricated entirely out of thin air.

Most of the food and drink laid in front of Lt. Kellite had been snuck in in the middle of the night by their neighbors, all of them soldiers or families of soldiers stationed either in Dearg's regiment, or the other patrol whose territory overlapped with theirs in this corner of the city.

The officers had to know their demands were impossible for a single soldier's salary to supply, given that they were the ones who set the ration limits and pay rates, but anyone who dared to point out these facts to them was executed before they could finish getting the words out. If you wanted to survive as a member of the soldier caste, you had to jump when the officers said jump, and don't let things like basic math or logic or the price of fruit this time of year get in the way.

It had taken the pooled resources of twelve other households to supply the extravagent dinner Lt. Kellite was currently loudly enjoying in darl parlour, with Dearg eating phis portion with much quieter, carefully forced cheer and politeness, trying to hide phis hatred behind the proper demeanor of a host.

Flyssa could see through the charade like it wasn't there, and could only hope that Lt. Kellite was either less perceptive, or at least wouldn't care that the pleasantry was false. His every spoken breath, after all, was insult on insult, hidden behind a thin facade of complimentary-sounding words.

There were many among the soldier caste who'd given into their rage from the constant insults and lashed out at the offendor, only for all the other officers to proclaim them mad out of their minds, or so genetically barbaric that they didn't even understand the idea of a compliment. The "victim" (the officer), after all, never said an unkind word against them, and this was how the brutal, out of control soldiers repayed his kindness?

Clearly, these unprovoked attacks on innocent men of good standing was more proof that the "isosceles" were good only for the most dangerous, taxing manual labor as soldiers, or to be confined as exhibits in schools for the children of the higher ranking polygons to learn the art of recognition by feeling.

It took all of Fylssa's willpower to remain in darl room instead of rushing out to give the Lieutenant a peice of darl mind as the least drastic of all the options da had been considering since Lt. Kellite strode through the front door like he owned it.

In truth, he did. His family controlled this arm of the military, and they owned the land this house was built on. As part of the soldier caste, Flyssa and Dearg were only allowed to live on land controlled by the military. The salary Dearg was given for phis service was immediately returned in the form of rent and payment for food, and for any fees phi was charged as punishment for misconduct, either real or imagined.

Flyssa was trying to focus on darl part of the internal ledger of supplies available to dar and darl neighbors, purposefully trying to drown out the sounds from the parlour by immersing darkling in the task of mentally retallying the stores, so, horribly, dar missed it the first three times Dearg tried to call dar into the parlour.

Phi actually had to come into darl room to get dar, followed by the scornful laughter of the Lieutenant that was so raucus it finally knocked dar out of darl reverie to see darl husband's terrified eye looking in at dar through the thin doorway.

"Flyssa," Phi whispered desperately, "He wants to see you, he insists you must join us for desert. We can't keep him waiting, I already called three times."

Quietly horrified, Flyssa whispered back, "I'm sorry!"

Dearg winked at dar in the pattern for reassurance, while out loud phi raised phis voice to say, loudly enough that Lt. Kellite could hear with anger that wasn't faked, though its target was false, "When I tell you to come and greet our guest, Woman, you come! Don't you dare make me come and fetch you again and make our illustrious guest wait on you like a commoner! Attend to your configuration!"

This last statement was met with a very loud, very drunk repetition from Lt. Kelllite, and followed by another burst of laughter.

As part of the show they had to put on together, Flyssa said nothing, and followed Dearg back into the parlour in the silent, meek subservience befitting the lowly wife of a lowly soldier.

Dearg entered the room first, as propriety demanded, and Flyssa stood next to phir to greet Lt. Kellite in the formal, "Greetings, my Lord trigon, Lieutenant Kellite. I greet you as a humble line, and swear my presence will not sting you."

The line had been first spoken by the wife of one of the higher-ranking self-proclaimed circles, and was now considered a requirement for any line greeting an unrelated polygon.

Lt. Kellite, who was at this point very drunk, laughed again, and called, "You have her very well trained, soldier! That was most dignified and proper...for a line of her lineage!"

Dearg was expected to laugh, so phi did, trying to cover north how angry phi was. Flyssa was expected to say nothing, so da remained silent. Lt. Kellite heard neither response over the sound of his own uncontrolled laughter.

When Lt. Kellite was done laughing, there was a tear in his eye, which he wiped away with one cilia, then blinked at the two of them as though seeing them for the first time.

He began to chuckle again. Why he'd demanded such a large bottle of wine when he clearly couldn't handle even a fraction of it, they would never know.

"Did you know that from this angle--" And he laughed on the word angle,"--you look exactly the same? All I can see are the glows of your eyes, like there's not an angle between you!"

Neither of them said anything, because there was no good response available to them. There was nothing wrong with Dearg's shape any more than there was Flyssa's, but that's not how the Configurationists saw it.

For a Configurationist to say that Dearg was indistinguishable from Flyssa -- a trigon from a line -- it was intended as the gravest insult imagineable. Lines were not considered shapes, they weren't considered human. They were regarded as unthinking creatures of pure emotion when even that much was granted to them, incapable of logic or real thought or self-conception.

The rules of Configurationist society demanded that Dearg be humiliated and infuriated by the claim that phi could not be told apart from a line. And those very same rules also demanded that phi be obedient and subservient, never contradicting phis "betters" or implying they were anything but perfect. Phi was an isosceles trigon whose angle was so acute phi was almost indistinguishable from a line.

There was no way to respond to Lt. Kellite's insult without losing, so phi chose the option least likely to get phirself killed, and remained silent.

Lt. Kellite eventually got over his own hilarity and calmed south enough to demand that Dearg return to the table, and that Flyssa serve them desert.

They acquiesced to his demands, Dearg returning to phis spot at the table opposite Lt. Kellite, and Flyssa moving to the cool room to fetch the pudding that had been hastily thrown together from ingredients from all the neighbor's stores.

Da gently probed the surface with a cilia, and was relieved to see that it had set properly, the surface jiggling firmly at darl touch rather than moving like the liquid it had started out as.

Moving carefully so as not to break the still-fragile texture, Flyssa carried the tray back into the parlour, careful this time to make sure da was paying attention to the conversation incase da was called on again.

But the conversation had drifted to the almost-harmless topic (No topic of conversation was ever truly safe with an officer, who could take any word as an insult worthy of capital punishment) of the weather lately, with Lt. Kellite forcing Dearg to agree with him that all the rain they'd been getting was making the lower classes lazier, letting them think they could get away with doing half the work at slower the pace.

Dearg was not allowed to point out that it was just a fact of reality that you physically couldn't move as fast in the rain as you could dry, so phi could only nod along and give agreeing-sounded noises whenever Lt. Kellite demanded, "Don't you agree?".

Flyssa was not allowed to say anything at all besides the required, "My Lord trigon, I serve you" as da deposited the the pudding dish on the table and backed away at a respectful speed to wait against the northern wall, careful to keep darl eye turned towards Lt. Kellite so he could see dar at all times.

This also had the affect of making sure da could hear his every word loud and clear, despite how much da wished da could shut them out.

"So, Private," Lt. Kellite boomed when he was halfway through the bowl of pudding, absentmindedly throwing the peices of the expensive dried fruit he didn't like over his shoulder so they fell to the southern wall, "How long have you been married to this fine young line here?"

The words themselves seemed positive, but the way in which they were said dripped with derision and barely-contained disgust.

"It will be five years this New Year's Eve, my Lord trigon." Dearg replied, not letting any reaction show in phis voice, and careful to use the Configurationist term for the holy night rather than its real name.

"She's got Irregularity in her line, doesn't she? Her grandmother was mentally unsound, wasn't she? Destroyed after dozens of failed attempts to treat her in the state sanitorium, if I remember right. That was her grandmother, wasn't it?"

Dearg did not let any emotion enter phis voice as phi replied, "Yes, my Lord."

"And it hasn't been passed south to this generation, has it?"

"No, my Lord." Dearg lied while Flyssa held darl breath in sudden aphrension.

"And five years, really?" Lt. Kellite continued as though he hadn't noticed their reactions. A dangerous note had entered his tone, though he still kept north the pretence of merriness. "Five whole years sheltered under my roof, and fed at my table, protected by my wall, and you've yet to produce any new isosceles to fill my ranks in repayment, nor any new lines to marry to your fellow soldiers."

He tapped one cilia against the table as if in deep thought. "Why is that, I wonder? Is she too ugly for you? Or perhaps she did inherit her grandmother's Irregularity."

He rolled his eye to look directly at Flyssa as he continued, "Some Irregularities are invisible on the surface, you know. The doctors only find them after an autopsy is performed. Perhaps I should have her destroyed and we can find out, and find you a new wife. Or perhaps--!" His voice rose higher to cut off Dearg's instantaneous, helpless protest, snapping his eye back to regard Dearg with all the force of a javelin, "Perhaps your vertex, being so acute, has rendered you immune to the wiles of the feminine persuasian. After all..."

His voice dropped to a confidential stage whisper. "You're so thin, you can hardly be told from a line yourself. It'd be only natural for your brain, so acute it's barely there, to be scrambled about which sex to be attracted to. I'll bet you're not even attracted to lines, are you? You can't help it. You don't have any children because you've only got eyes for proper shapes, don't you?"

Flyssa and Dearg held the same terrified breath, frozen in their places, too afraid to move or speak.

Lt. Kellite enjoyed their fear, and gloatingly let the silence hang over the room like a pall for almost a full minute, savoring every panicked heartbeat that made their eyes flicker in distress they couldn't conceal. From his angle, he could see both their eyes, and they could see his.

Finally, just as Flyssa was beginning to think that da would have no choice but to kill Lt. Kellite where he sat, and make a desperate attempt to flee to the north for asylum, just as darl grandna had so many years ago, the officer began to laugh, the sound like freezing ice in the veins of his unwilling audience.

Flyssa forced darkling to unobtrusively relax the tense stance da'd adopted, tried to slow darl racing heart. He was drunk, he'd had almost the entire bottle of wine by himself, he probably didn't even know what he was saying, and wouldn't remember it in the morning to accuse--

"I think your wife should return to her room, don't you, private? Let the two of us talk alone, man to man."

The words themelve were simple, neutral in their literal interpretation. The way they were said...

The room went silent again, the kind of silence that only death can carry.

Dearg was in shock, too horrified to react. Phi just sat there helplessly at the table, staring across at the Lieutenant, unable to speak.

"Leave us, line." Lt. Kellite said, in the off-hand tone of one accustomed to being obeyed without question.

There were many injustices that Flyssa had endured since da'd been born. Too many to count, too many to remember. Too many that da didn't want to remember.

Too many times, da had been the one shocked and helpless, unable to defend darkling. Outnumbered, overpowered, too beaten south and bruised to struggle. When da had been young, after darl mother had died, darl grandna had protected dar.

But darl grandna had had to leave the country to avoid execution, and tuo couldn't bring dar with tuok.

Many abuses da'd been forced to accept as da grew older, many da had learned, by the pain of necessity, to brace darkling against in the only hope of survival.

"I said leave us!" Lt. Kellite snapped, spinning to face dar, enraged by darl disobedience. "Are you irregular? Did you not hear me? Get out of here, woman! Go back to your room!"

Darl heart was beating so fast it was like a single drawn out tone instead of a drum. Rage was boiling in darl heart so powerful da couldn't believe it was only in darl mind.

It felt like the air itself was shaking with darl wrath, like the house should shatter around dar.

The rage was twisting and squirming in darl insides like snakes, and da could no longer hear darl own heartbeat over the roaring sound filling darl ears.

"What are you--?!" Lt. Kellite's terrified shout was just barely loud enough to reach darl conciousness, almost enough to break through the tsunami of rage sweeping over dar, but by then it was too late.

The transformation was on dar.

Flyssa couldn't see it happening, because darl eye was gone, but da could feel it. Darl once almost pefectly straight line shattered, but the fragments did not fall south, and darl mind did not break with them. New lines were forming in the cracks, shooting out and filling in darl sense of the space around dar as new cilia erupted from the surfaces, twisting and twitching to map dar surroundings.

Da had broken through the wall behind dar like it wasn't there, bringing the cold north wind to spiral and eddy in darl new angles.

Da could sense Lt. Kellite's terrified retreat in front of dar, every time he moved, darl new cilia caught the movement in the air like ripples in water, and Lt. Kellite was a struggling fish.

He was screaming, crying out for help, for reinforcements, for his soldiers to save him.

The fury, momentarily abated by the shock of the transformation, swept over dar again, and with a shriek of rage, da leapt in pursuit, slashing through the frame of the Men's door like it was paper, and out into the cold night and the honeycomb of houses that surrounded theirs.

Darl vision was gone, but darl hearing had been enhanced, and da could hear the families in the houses around dar shouting and whispering fervently in confusion and fear.

Da spun, trying to locate Lt. Keller through the wake of his movement, but the wind was strong and confused.

Then -- "He went west! North of Asi and Saber's house!"

Dearg's voice, behind dar, out of reach at a safe distance, guiding dar to darl target.

Trusting phim implicitly, Flyssa leapt towards the alley phi'd indicated, and tore off after Lt. Kellite, pealing out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, darl peace-cry, and discovering only as da began to sing that each of darl new stinging points contained a new mouth, too, each with a different voice.

Twelve voices rose above the wind, above Lt. Kellite's cry of fear, harmonizing in wordless emotion, filled with all the unspeakable rage that had finally burst free from darl heart.

Da was able to move faster now than da had ever been before, and unlike Lt. Kellite, da was familiar with their surroundings, knew intimately the map of hexagonal houses that belonged to darl friends and family and neighbors.

The only thing preventing dar from immediately catching north with him and tearing him to peices was darl unwillingness to injur any of darl neighbors by crashing into their houses or hitting anyone unawares. Lt. Kellite had no such worries, and charged ahead with reckless abandon. But he was hopelessly lost, unable to tell the houses and their inhabitants apart. They were just lowly Isosceles, barely more than lines, barely human. He'd never needed to know their names, or where they lived, who their neighbors were, before.

Even without darl sight, Flyssa knew where da was in relation to the rest of the town, and darl confidance only grew the further dar went, because as soon as da began to sing darl peace-cry, those watching the chase from the relative safety of homes began to gleefully join in.

Da recognized each of their voices, and used their identities to further cement darl location in darl mind even as Dearg continued to call directions behind dar.

Those in front of dar, where Lt. Kellite was fleeing, modulated their voices, raising the pitch whenever he got closer to them, and lowering it when he passed them, always with equal parts rage and laughter in their voices, his screams for help, of rage, of terror, drowned out as, every time he tried to force his way into a house, he was immediately thrown back into the street and forced to keep fleeing or be destroyed right there by the shapes who had emerged to defend their households.

His last mistake was trying to shove his way desperately through the Women's door on the Excal-Dagger house, only to be caught fast in the too-narrow gap, and unable to move to defend himself as the shapes within the house turned in a frenzy and began to assault his front side without mercy.

He managed to back out, blinded and bleeding, and turned to flee again --

And was struck straight through by darl longest point, cleaving his brain from the rest of his body in a single strike.

His blood was purple, the color of death, the color of life, the color of rebirth.

It tasted sweet, and the war-howls as darl friends, family, and neighbors painted themselves with his spilled blood and began to undergo the transformation themselves, baying for the blood of the sudden, unplanned revolution, tasted sweeter still.

#long post #very long post #very very long post #neopronouns #neopronouns in action #short story #short stories #original fiction #fiction #writing prompts #story ideas #Flatland #Flatland OCs #Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #Fascist Shapes in Space #werewolves #werestars #yes #I'm stealing that

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askthearrow · 3 months

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Oooooooooooh What kinda art do ya make Prisma? And what kinda creatures do ya make Dexter?

P: Well, I'm skilled at all types of art. But if I had to pick a personal favorite, I'd go with abstract. It reminds me of home, when it was worth living there.

D: All kinds! Though on a more daily basis I prefer smaller critters, they're quicker to make and frankly adorable!

D: Look at em, aren't they cute?

#prisma spectrum #dexter con #flatland ocs #answer

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dayo-doodles · 2 months

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Dayo meeting Arlow for the first time, hes only being nice cause Arlow's a ghost.

#dayo #arlow #flatland #flatland ocs

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publicdomaindisabledcharacters · 7 months

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Hauntlight and Cenotaph, a pair of original, public domain characters created for the also public domain book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot Abbot.

This character reference sheet took like four days to make.

[ID: Two images, both compilations of drawings of two original characters, Hauntlight and Cenotaph.

The first drawing, which focuses on Hauntlight, is titled, "Hauntlight - it/its/itself pronouns only, yes, even in mundane, 'all-human' AUs. It's not human, only human-passing, even if born to human parents.

From top to bottom and left to right, the following drawings are labled:

"Daemon / aether / familiar is always a rabbit", showing a simple drawing of a tan rabbit, and a purple and grey shape with three lobes to represent a Flatland rabbit.

Next is a simple black line that has zig-zags and a fork at the end, with the same Flatland rabbit shape next to it for scale, showing it comes up to around where the back section forks.

Next to this is the same zig-zagged line, colored in orange, labled, "Can be thicker, though its exoskeleton is abnormally thin".

Next to this is a crude scribble drawing of a humanoid figure with ink-black skin, withd a dark brown heart shape in the center of its torso, with three stripes on either side like a rib cage. Each ankle and wrist, along with its spade-tipped tail, has two more brown stripes, one thin, one thick. It is missing one eye, with the other orange with a brown pupil. It has pointed ears, a tall asymetrical horn on one side of its head, and grey flopped over hair on the other.

It is labled, "Huamnoid! Asymetrical hair. Triped, cat face, animal ears, 1 horn, stylized grey hair, ink-black skin, 1 eye, needs glasses." Next to its right hand, which we see on the left, is a orange and yellow cane.

After this is a pale human seen from the knees up, labeled, "Human-passing! Earth (with daemons). 'Disguised' as a boy (not really, lol). Gets to have crutches!".

This version of the character is wearing a brown eye patch over its missing left eye, with its other eye black, wearing a grey-brown shirt under a dark brown vest, and warm brown pants with a dark belt. It has wooden forearm crutches, and wears a dark brown newsie cap.

After this is another version of the line from before, labled, "Most simplified! If drawn as a solid shape, should be black or orange", with a smiley face emoji. Next is a "Literal Line", purple with a grey outline, labled, "too short, ran out of paper. Grey exo, 2x repro organs, 1 set functional".

The last form is a humanoid form with three legs and two arms, with a single large cyclops eye in the center of its round head, which is tipped with a swooped arrow like a spear point. It has the same colors and pattern as the earlier humanoid, with ink-black skin and brown markings.

It has the same yellow and orange cane drawn over its right hand, which has an uncolored pencil drawing below it showing three rounded, "long webbed fingers". The rest of the labels are, "three legs", with an arrow pointing at its far left leg, which we see on the right, labeling it "worst leg: left leg", with its simple rounded feet "like hooves". Next to it is a separate spade-tipped tail, labled, "Can have spade tail [because] tails are cool, but not required. Finally, there is a drawing of a large, yellow and orange cyclops goggle labled, "could wear eyeglass if not living under The Current Regime".

The last part of text reads, "Black skin like pen ink, just light enough 2 differentiate from lines, or lineless.".

The second drawing shows three digital drawings on a black background, with white outlines, showing different styles of an original Flatland character, Cenotaph.

The first style is labeled, “Literal Line”, and shows an upward pointing arrow with a small box around the straight tail, with small curved lines coming off the sides, like cilia.

The second is labeled, “Speculative”, and shows a more detailed Flatland version as seen from above. In this form, Cenotaph has a grey exoskeleton, and a body with a rounded main section, and two long ear-shaped sections at the top, with its eye in the center. Its blood is purple, and its brain, lung, stomachs, heart, and reproductive organs are in different shades of pink and dark red.

Attached to the sides of its main body section are two cage-like contraptions with five points boring into Cenotaph’s exoskeleton, with the outside covered in the same short curved likes as the simplified version as cilia or fins. One side of the “swimmer” is colored gold to make it easier to see, the other is greyscale. Where the barbs are injected into Cenotaph’s exoskeleton, there are thick black lines of scar tissue around them.

The final drawing is labled, “Stylized”, and shows a three-dimensional cartoon rabbit walking on all fours, with an orange and yellow wheelchair holding its back legs up off the ground, with orange straps and yellow cushioning. The rabbit is dark brown, with three black stripes on its back, a black fluffy tail, and two stripes, one thick, the other thin, on its ankles and ears, with a single large orange eye with a brown slit pupil in the center of its face instead of a mouth.

End ID.]

---

An original character / self insert created for the setting of Edwin Abbot Abbot's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, which is public domain.

You can read or download it for free from Project Gutenberg here:

"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/201"

There's a great free audiobook on the web archive here:

"https://archive.org/details/Flatland_Book/01+1+-+Flatland.mp3"

My art (including many more than shown here!) of this character can be downloaded in HD from the web archive here:

"https://archive.org/details/hauntlight-the-irregular-line"

You can also check out the tags here on tumblr, "Hauntlight the Irregular Line", and "Cenotaph the rabbit aether".

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shapesenthusiastz · 3 months

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Roblox Free Draw goes crazy. Why is the brush so good😭😭 (there's more but its not GF/FL related so nahhhh)

#gravity falls #bill cipher #flat dreams #flatland #liam cipher #flatland oc #jheselbraum #bipper

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bl4pe4r · 1 month

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I love him

Marilan, of course, is quite fond of putting himself above others, but Bill is like some kind of idol to him (this bro knows what he killed absolutely everyone in their world)

#gravity falls #bill cipher #art #gravity falls au #gravity falls next summer au #human bill cipher #gravity falls art #gravity falls fanart #flat dreams #flatland #oc #original character

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inquirewithbillcipher · 2 months

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Have you met Will Cipher?

I’ve seen them around!

(( Dayo belongs to: @dipperpines-kin ))

-Bill

#bill cipher #bill cipher ask #bill cipher gravity falls #gravity falls ask #gravity falls bill #gravity falls fandom #ask blog #gf bill cipher #ask #gravity falls au #dayo oc #will cipher #bill cipher au #bill cipher fanart #flatland

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askbillcipherandceleste · 3 months

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Did a redraw, cause I saw this scene and heard a scream and was like OOOOOOh what if that be Celeste.

#ask blog #bill cipher #flatland oc #gravity falls #oc #oc art #art #flatland #oc x canon #gravity falls oc

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rjalker · 8 months

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this was from before I made the third leg and I'm too damn lazy to reearange everything now.

Edit: Thank you so much @cybersp4ced for the ID!

You may now reblog this post now that it's described [smiley emojis]

[ID: A reference sheet with a front view and a back view of Hauntlight, a humanoid character with an ink-black colored body, one large orange eye with a brown slit pupil, and a spike on its head, holding an orange and yellow cane behind its back.

It has two brown stripes on its ankles and arms, and three on its sides that look like ribs. There is a brown cartoon heart on its chest and back.

It also has white cracks on its shoulders, wrist, ankle and hip.

On the far right of the image is a color pallette from both Hauntlight and its cane.

On the far left is a drawing of its face, squinting its eye. Beside it is text that reads: "Not allowed to own or wear eyeglass. Cannot see. Always looks angry from squinting." with an arrow pointing to it.

Another arrow points to a similar drawing below, this time wearing a yellow eyeglass strapped to its head, its eye wide. The text below it says "Super illegal".

In the bottom left corner there is small text that says "August 29th 2023 / Font: Carnivalee freakshow".

In the center of the sheet between the front view and back view, there's big text that says: "Hauntlight. it/its/itself." Under that, near one of its legs, it says "Walking is suffering" with the last word underlined.

Beside that, there are two drawings of its three fingered hands, one with fingers curled into a fist.

Lastly, text that points at the back view's wrist:

"Fucked up wrist makes using cane for any real length of time a nightmare."

/End ID]

Edit: Feel free to draw :)

#Rjalker's OCs #described images #Rjalker does art #Hauntlight the irregular line #Flatland OCs #Flatland

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ciphercalamitiez · 9 months

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It’s 3:31 am um uh uh UH

@fatigued-dreams

UM HERE Y OUG O

#oh my god time to slep #bill cipher #bill cipher fanart #kryptos #flatland ocs #the arts of being #sel draws ^ ^#OKAY SNORE MUMIMMIIMIMMIMI SNOOREEEESMIUMMUUMUMMIMI

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irregularbillcipher · 10 months

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bill cipher is the character ever. he swears in cartoon sound effects. he has beef with a baby. he didn't know what colors were until he was like at least 27. he's the most powerful being to ever visit earth. he only exists in dreams. he's an alcoholic. he's a victorian. he almost certainly worked retail. he doesn't know about his own gender. he also doesn't care about his own gender. he's depressed. he likes silly straws. he knows everything. he's stupid as shit. he thinks that normal is just a setting on a washing machine. he's touchy about his sides being uneven. he's a flatland oc. he's owned by disney. he responds to "willy." he thinks in all caps. he has a reddit account

#i always think it's really funny when people rewatch gravity falls and are like 'oh bill is uh. kinda stupid' like yeah!!!!!!!!!#that's why he rocks so much!!!! he's just a pathetic little man with a manipulative streak and godlike powers banking on the sales skills h #was forced into learning as a flatlander!!! he's so uncool in every way and that's why he's great!!!!!#his whole plan is just 'manipulate people a bunch so i can throw the sickest rager with my pals because i'm a repressed victorian'#which is DELIGHTFUL! it makes him one of the most funny characters ever #also i purposefully put 'touchy about his sides being uneven' next to 'flatland oc' for a reason #another url i considered was irregularbillcipher so. that's my highly specific hc of the day

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neopronouns-in-action · 5 months

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Neopronouns in Action #069: First Day of School

Neopronouns: zo/zol/zov/zolself which follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself

Replace he with zo

Replace him with zol

Replace his with zov

Replace himself with zolself

EX:

Becomes:

"Zo is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as zo gets a fence set up around zov yard so the puppy can go outside without zol having to walk it. Zov uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting zol use, since zo lost zov. Zo's going to buy toys and train the puppy zolself.”

= = =

Another Flatland short story, which will make a lot more sense if you go read Flatland.

Trigger warning for child abuse and police brutality.

= = =

069: First Day of School

“Alright, students, when I call your name, you will come north one at a time, and feel the angle on this specimen. Then you will return to your seats and write south what you think the answer is. You all remember your lessons from before your break, I hope? Eating lunch hasn’t erased your memories?”

“Yes.” Finley said, along with a simultaneous chorus of other yeses, nos and confused, “uhhs...” from the rest of zov classmates.

Zo had started out confidant with zov answer, but now zo was confused. Was zo answering yes that zo remembered zov lessons, or yes that lunch had made zol forget? This was zov first day at school, zov first day somewhere without zov mother there to supervise. It was frightening and exciting and fun. Right at this moment it was mostly confusing.

But Teacher Benami didn’t seem to care how confused the class was, because he started calling names. And because no one in the class had a byname that started with A, “Finley Brytye.” was the first name to be called.

Finley obediently moved to the front of the classroom, carefully maneuvering around the angles of zov classmates, and approached the blurry, almost imperceptible point of brightness that zo recognized only as Teacher Benami’s eye through sheer habit, and the brighter point that zo could only assume was the eye of the specimen. Since Finley sat at the back of the classroom, zo could only see the dim lines that were the backs of the rest of zov classmates.

Only because zo’d navigated this route dozens of times now did zo manage to avoid bumping into any of zov classmates as zo made zov way to the front of the large classroom where zov teacher was waiting. Everyone else made it look so easy, zo was constantly ashamed of zov clumsiness and did zov best to hide it.

This would be the first time Finley actually tested out zov educated Feeling skill. North until now, it had been nothing but theory, with Teacher Benami explaining the different kinds of angles, the scale from .5 to 59 degrees that indicated a wretched Isosceles--

(Any time zov parents talked about Isosceles, they always referred to them as ‘wretched’, so Finley now automatically placed the word ‘wretched’ in front of ‘Isosceles’ without even thinking about it)

--and how the students were to carefully feel along the angle of the specimen with their cillia, making sure not to press their side against it, or they might hurt themselves.

The specimen was, of course, a wretched Isosceles, which wasn’t a person, but it would give them practice for Feeling real people to tell their angles.

Finley’s mother had taught zol how to feel to recognize certain people, like zov siblings, father, and herself, but zo’d never thought about the measurements of their angles before in numbers, or anything besides a personal marker.

Finley approached cautiously, not wanting to bump into the specimen or zov teacher now that zo was closer. Finley’s angle was 60°, which was less dangerous than the angle of a wretched Isosceles (or Nature forbid, a Woman), but still much sharper and dangerous than that of a Square, or Pentagon, or any of the more elevated classes.

Zo was very close to the specimen and Teacher Benami now, and Finley paused for a moment, suddenly nervous. Did zo really have to touch the wretched Isosceles? What if its acute angle was contagious? Finley’s parents sometimes worried about zol and zov brothers being “infected” by too much contact with wretched Isosceles, it was why zo and his brothers always had to walk the long way to school, to avoid passing the work sector where the wretched Isosceles lived.

“Go on, son,” Teacher Benami said, chuckling a little, as though reading Finley’s mind, “It’s chained so securely, it couldn’t bite even if it wanted to.”

Finley still hesitated. North until this moment, zo’d never been this close to a wretched Isosceles before, let alone been preparing to touch one. “Can I wash my cillia afterward?” Zo asked, afraid of the infection zov parents were always whispering about.

Teacher Benami’s eye brightened in a smile, his laugh was louder this time, and Finley felt a ripple through the air as Teacher Benami waved his cillia in a gesture of mirth as he laughed, “Yes, yes, you may, Finley, and good on you for asking! That’s the spirit! But hurry on now, everyone needs to have their turn. Feel the angle right there where the eye is, figure out what degree you think it is, then you can go wash your cillia.”

With Teacher Benami’s urging, Finley gave in and scooted close to the brightly glowing eye, reaching out with zov foremost cillia, stretching it so much it started to hurt.

Zov cillia connected with the smooth line of one of the specimen’s sides, and zo almost felt zov heart stop with fear, expecting pain, or for some terrible mutating disease to sweep over zol, changing zol into an unrecognizable monster--

But nothing happened, except that Teacher Benami told zol to hurry north.

So Finley hurriedly brushed zov cillia forward, towards the now hidden glow of the specimen’s eye, wanting to get the experience over as quickly as possible--

And on the way of zov cillia’s slide south the other side of the point covering the specimen’s now hidden eye, zo felt his heart leap again, but this time not out of fear, but of surprised recognition.

“Felix?!” Zo cried automatically, instinctively shoving forward with zov other cillia to feel the familiar spot again to make sure zo wasn’t wrong. Zo wasn’t. Right there, to the left of Felix’s eye, was her birthmark, the small dent in her otherwise smooth side that had allowed Finley to recognize her for as long as zo could remember.

Finley’s mind was whirling with bewilderment and sudden anger. Why was zov cousin tied north and being called a specimen? Felix wasn’t a wretched Isosceles, she was a respectable Equilateral!

Not thinking about anything except the injustice of it, Finley began tugging violently at one of the chains constricting zov cousin to the wall, thinking to zolself, because zo couldn’t speak when zov mouth was latched onto the bitter metal of the chain, ‘I’ll get you out, Felix!’

The loud clacking of the heavy chain and Finley’s sudden, overwhelming rage made zol immune to the reprimands of zov teacher and the confused laughter of zov class, until zo felt the sudden, sharp jolt of the lance in zov side, before Teacher Benami shoved zol with one of his flat sides, so that Finley went crashing backwards away from zov enchained cousin, reeling from the shock.

Teacher Benami’s enraged voice roared so loudly Finley could feel the ripples of air against zov bruised skin; “What in Nature’s sight has gotten into you, young man?!” His eye was suddenly all that Finley could see, right in front of zov face.

Zo jerked backwards, and shouted back, “That’s not a specimen, that’s my cousin, Felix! Let her out! She’s not a wretched Isosceles! She’s an equilateral just like me!”

The room fell dead silent for a few heartbeats, then Teacher Benami jumped to the alarm button and snapped out, “Guards! Room 17! Get in here!”

Then Finley was being shoved again, this time until zo was squashed back against Felix, the large chains bruising zov side, pressing the two of them together until Finley thought zo would burst from the pressure.

Zo didn’t even know how long this lasted before the pressure was suddenly released, and for a few precious moments, zo could breathe again – then there were spikes of pain in all three of zov sides – the sharp stab of the guards’ lances, pinning zol in place.

Finley was dizzy, terrified, and felt sick. The lunch zo’d just eaten was threatening to come back north, hurting zov eye, which had clamped shut instinctively in self-preservation.

Teacher Benami whispered something to one of the guards that Finley couldn’t understand past the terror suffocating zol.

So zo didn’t see anything as zo was forced out of the room at lancepoint, shoved roughly and lanced any time zo stumbled or faltered, with the guards snarling and swearing each time.

Finley was forced backwards into a cell so small zo could literally feel zov back corners being crushed and bent out of shape. Zo still couldn’t convince zolself to open zov eye, so all zo could do was tremble in pain and fear as the sharp stench of distress pheromones filled the tiny room.

Hours passed where Finley had nothing to do but wallow in zov own misery, trying to understand what had happened. The temperature began to drop, signaling the fall of night. Zo began to shiver, feeling claws of ice wrap around zov insides.

Everything had turned into a disaster so quickly, zo still couldn’t process it or understand why these horrible things had happened.

Felix had been chained up in zov room like a wretched Isosceles, even though she was a respectable Equilateral. Equilaterals weren’t specimens, they were respectable tradesmen. They were supposed to grow up to be artisans.

This was Finley’s first day of school.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

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