#source: half vine

[marce-mallow]

Nico: Please, Zeus, just let me have one good day.

Zeus, from Olympus: oh my god, you again? give it a rest, buddy!

#could work with any of the half bloods probably #i would use Percy but he’s probably given up at this point #source: i think either tiktok or vine #nico di angelo #zeus pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #hereos of olympus #hoo #pjo incorrect quotes #incorrect pjo quotes #hoo incorrect quotes #incorrect hoo quotes #percy jackson incorrect quotes #incorrect percy jackson quotes #incorrect quotes

[ayaboba]

one chance

summary: you give them one chance. how do they use it?

characters: alhaitham, diluc, neuvillette, wriothesley.

notes: will be a part 2 (i think), suggestive in alhaitham and diluc’s, petnames, gn! reader, kinda messy, wc: approx 200-250 each.

alhaitham

The only source of light came from the weary beams of the iridescent crescent moon, glowing high above the starry skies of Sumeru City. Shining onto the home underneath.

Two people casting hazy shadows on the hardwood floor, moving lazily to the gentle rhythm of the vinyl playing on the record. An occasional ring of spirited laughter escaping into the noiseless night, usually followed by a hushed but lively chuckle.

—

The only word that comes to mind is surreal.

Perhaps because the moment could be considered just that. It’s piercing you so beautifully, the thousand words electrifying the air between you, threatening to strike at any moment. His eyes, so vividly green and captivating, all tender and kind, capturing yours like a kiss.

“For once, someone’s speechless,” comes a proud voice of the person responsible for leaving you in such a mess. You can almost feel the smugness cascading off him, tripling as he so wonderfully decides to snake an arm around your waist. What do you say? He’s not wrong, oh certainly not, but your pride would surely never recover if it were to go through such a torturous experience.

“It’s okay,” he replies, tilting his head down towards your collarbone, short puffs of breath making you shiver. “I’ll have to make sure this one chance is all worth it.”

diluc

The evening breeze brings forth many aromas—the subtle scent of grapes on vines, the earthy fragrance of the nearby forests—all mixing into one radiant feeling of home. Cicadas that hum lowly as dusk settles in, the sunset gleaming in the near distance, spilling onto the front porch of Dawn Winery.

It’s beginning to get colder, and the knitted cardigan wrapped around you is starting to prove useless. Yet, you refuse to move. He promised, you remind yourself, staring more fiercely into the ombré of warm colours dappling the sky. He promised, you repeat in your mind again, again and again.

—

“I promised,” he murmurs, his voice muffled against the wool of your cardigan. “Did you think I’d break it?” Gentle and precise hands cup your face, lifting it towards his. His eyes are searching, curious, but warmhearted. It makes you dazed—a sudden desire to plunge into his embrace, washing out all other rational thoughts.

“Maybe,” you answer, bolder than he anticipated. He raises his eyebrows as you continue on. “Don’t you think you need to make it up to me?”

neuvillette

Dust on the bookshelves is threatening to make you sneeze.

The books are in pristine condition, you note. Perhaps opened a few or so times. It’s a shame how none of them peak your interest; the boredom drowning you by the second is starting to make you agitated, an obvious understatement.

You’re on the verge of madness. The luxurious rug lining Neuvillette’s office with the matching teal and gold curtains is far too vibrant, and the elegant flowers you once admired half an hour ago are sickening.

You sigh loudly, letting out a few groans, before contorting into a questionable position in the grand chair. Horizontal, legs and arms splayed out, eyes closed.

How much longer is the trial going to last?

—

When you wake up, you’re not in his office anymore.

Instead, you’re in a dimly lit bedroom. Ghostly familiar, the delicate feeling of silk below your head, the comforting warmth of the sweetly scented covers, and most of all, a faraway voice calling out your name.

“(name).”

A soft tug of a hand pulls you into an upright position.

“Darling… please, I've made you dinner. Open your eyes for me, please.”

Languidly, you do.

The sight is stunning, captivating, and completely unexpected that it renders you speechless. A small candlelit table, fit for two, covered in a divine array of foods that remind him of you, your favourites.

As if he knows what you’re thinking, he smiles, leading you to your seat before his.

wriothesley

Last week, Wriothesley called you into his office because he couldn’t decide what tea to order.

Yesterday, Wriothesley called you into his office because he wanted to share his tea with someone.

Also yesterday, after you had finished the (delightful) tea and cakes, you warned him that you were giving him one last chance.

“Don’t call me in unless it’s an absolute emergency, alright? This is the last time.”

Something about that agreement felt off, like that you had forgotten to mention a crucial component—that singular missing piece—the one he would almost certainly seize.

You had shrugged it off, focusing on your daily commissions, when suddenly, in the corner of your peripheral vision, an all too familiar, all too dreaded silhouette walks towards you.

“Excuse me, the Duke wants to see you. Again.”

—

You want to slap that winning grin off his face.

“Tea?” Wriothesley asks hopefully, lifting up a tray of teacups before cautiously lowering them down at your expression. “Come on sweetheart, this is an emergency. At least, I consider it to be one.”

This situation is testing every last drop of your patience. Incoherent murmurs stream out of your mouth as you lightly push his tray of teacups to the furthest side of the table.

“This is all quite lovely,” you strain, glaring into his amused eyes. “However, I’m failing to see the actual emergency you had called me in for.”

“Emergency?” Wriothesley asks, pleasantly surprised, edging the teacups a bit closer to you. “Why should there be an emergency, darling? Everything’s perfect.”

#genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin drabbles #alhaitham x reader #diluc x reader #neuvillette x reader #wriothesley x reader #anya writes ✧.*

[bellaofthevalley]

Stellaron Hunters: Singing Dove

Content warning: yandere themes, polyamorous relationship, reader is gender-neutral.

It starts with a chase. 

It always starts with a chase. 

You run through the cold, deep snow. Dried leaves and twigs hiding under the snowy blanket crunch beneath your boots, and the little cracking noises they cause makes you want to cry painful, heaving sobs that shake through your frame. 

The moon hangs high in the sky, your singular source of light. You are so deep within this frozen wasteland, not even Belebog's lights show on the horizon. 

A perfect place for them to hunt you. But hunt truly is too kind of a word; a prey has at least a singular, sliver chance of survival. You are merely a toy between their clutches, ever so often placed in a new playground for their amusement, but at the end- 

You will be back with them. It is, after all, part of the script. Always, always, always- 

You stumble and fall on your hands and knees with a painful gasp, foot catching within viney branches that dig into your boots and pants. You'd been running so much, for so long, you hadn't even realised just how out of breath your poor lungs were. 

In, and out. In, and out. In, and out.

You take in one, last big breath before finally looking back to get your foot out of the vines and hopefully, with the mercy of Qlipoth the Preservation and any Aeon that will listen, escape from this hellhole- 

Only to meet two red piercing eyes staring at you from such darkness, not even the moon could disperse it. Peering, watching, waiting. 

"No!" The frightened scream tears itself out of your throat, and your lack of breath and aching foot are forgotten entirely. In the distance, among the flying crows and skittering spiders, you heard the tinkling laugh of a woman.

Everything is dangerous. Everything is dangerous. Everything is dangerous-

He tells you everything is dangerous as he sharpens a sword, cracks going through its cold blade like broken glass. His voice is low, but his eyes are staring straight at you. Gazing, scrutinizing, waiting. 

How many days, weeks, and months have you spent with them now? With him? You know his past by now, something he'd confided in you in the lonely, dead hours of the night, where you craved interaction even from someone like him. When he would crave interaction from you, would seek you out and hoard your time with the excuse that Kafka demanded he needed you to heal him and soothe his mara-struck mind with your singing, nimble fingers unwillingly going through his hair. 

Everything is dangerous, Bǎo bèi. You will stay here with us.

She tells you everything is dangerous without telling you. You are on her lap, so shamefully naked and exposed yet she lounges against the tub as if the world is her oyster to pick, hands on your waist and nails slightly dragging against your skin until there are raised goosebumps trailing up your body. 

It might as well be her world to rule. 

You will not leave, my darling. She says with the softest laugh, burying her pretty face in your tender throat and kissing your skin. Her perfume still clings to her skin, leaving your mind hazy and muddled- all thoughts of your burning homeland they took you from washing away until all you can think of is her, her, her. She's a devil and a devil hunter; she is a spider that has spun into a web you can see neither the start nor end of, demands your songs as if you, your songs and voice all belong to her. 

Everything is dangerous, my lovely. You will not leave, not now nor ever.

You run and run, boots so torn every twig and rock digs into your delicate skin. You are crying, too, stumbling against trees and branches. The noise that comes out of your throat is half-sob, half-prayer. Mercy, oh Aeon, grant me mercy. 

You speed past the forest. It does not matter where you are, only that you leave. There are so many snapping noises, but all of it is from your running so you- you are sure you are safe- 

No more trees, and the lights from Belebog now shine like the very stars of hope. So close now, and freedom tastes so unbelievably sweet on your tongue. You reach a hand out- 

And fall down again, staring up at the star-less sky with wide eyes and a frantic heart. 

No twig or branch made you fall. 

Spider webs did. 

The moon is so beautiful.

"The moon is so beautiful, isn't it, my darling?" 

Kafka looks down on you, kneeling down by your side. Her pretty eyes gleam in the encroaching darkness, mouth stretched into a small smile that is anything but kind. 

Yet her touch is so very gentle when she cups your face, wipes away the lone tear trickling down your cheek. She is even gentler when she leans down to kiss the corner of your lips, this time tasting your second tear. 

It makes her sigh, so awfully fond. The spider web clings to your body, crawling up your limbs. You are unaware of Blade slowly coming out of the woods, your focus entirely on Kafka. 

"You tried your very best," she croons, voice low and soft. Her smile widens, thumb swiping across your chapped lips, smoothing out the furrowed lines between your brows. "But it wasn't enough, was it? It will never be enough, either. But, oh, how beautiful you looked as you ran and ran, so fully convinced you even had a small chance of success… like a frightened rabbit. Isn't that right, Bladie?" 

Blade's silence is unsurprising, and you are glad for it as you finally descend into sobs, turning your head away from her even as her hand chases your face. All of it… was just an illusion? All of it? 

"Carry them, Bladie." Kafka orders, chuckling. She plays with your hair for a few seconds, humming before she kisses you, kisses under your lashes, one last time and gets up. "Carry them home, where they belong." 

 It ends with you back in their arms. 

It always ends with you back in their arms. 

Masterlist.

#bella.posts #honkai star rail #blade honkai #kafka honkai #yandere honkai star rail #yandere honkai #blade x reader #yandere blade #yandere blade x reader #kafka x reader #yandere kafka x reader #yandere kafka

[halfagone]

Danny, You Need To Calm Down

Me: "I need to nerf Danny a bit for this fic. I should have him only reveal and use his intangibility."

Danny: *is still BAMF and kicks ass*

Me: "Hmm... I did not think this through."

---

I am serious, though. If you're creative enough and have watched enough superhero media then you'll be able to find all sorts of unusual applications to some of Danny's powers.

With intangibility alone, all Danny needs to do is stand there and let his opponent tire themselves out trying to just land a blow and then fight back. If he has some more melee or martial arts training, he could use a nerve strike and bam, one-shot knock-out. And that's not even counting super strength or flight or telekinesis or why is this boy so overpowered?! /rhetorical

And if you know me, you know how much I love writing a good OP BAMF Danny. But it can be pretty restricting too. With an abundance of powers and a proven track record to gain more powers when necessary, it's not exactly easy to keep Danny down. There are a few known weaknesses we can use to our advantage here, but they come with their own issues:

Major Weaknesses

Blood Blossoms

We've seen blood blossoms are pretty effective on ghosts from the "Infinite Realms" episode in Season 3, but only on Danny's ghost half. I always thought it was a bit strange, since Danny has used ghost powers in his human form so technically it should still affect him? But that's just a personal headcanon so feel free to ignore that.

But! Since Danny could just transform (if he can get past the total agony it causes him) then he'll be fine again. Blood blossoms are also edible, as proven by Tucker, which makes me wonder if Danny could eat them in his human form and make it out unscathed? Since it's only his ghost half that's susceptible to them.

However, it's commonly headcanon'd that blood blossoms are extinct as we only see them in this episode back in the 1600s from the Salem Witch Trials. But canon also tends to bring up some really interesting concepts and then just... never mention them again, so it's possible they're still out there and the Fentons just never learned of them.

Ecto-ranium

We don't see this one come up too many times in fanfiction, if only because many of us have totally blocked out the episode it aired in, "Phantom Planet", from our minds entirely. Ecto-ranium is essentially the equivalent of kryptonite, but for ghosts. (Unsurprising, seeing as Phantom Planet likely took inspiration from Christopher Reeve's Superman II.)

This does come with some plotholes of its own, seeing as intangibility had allowed the ecto-ranium to pass through the Earth despite ecto-ranium supposedly making it impossible for ghosts to use their powers? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one, I won't lie...

So obviously this weakness also has some shaky ground to stand on.

Mind Control

We see in "Control Freaks" that Danny is pretty susceptible to mind control as well, so long as it comes from the right source. We learn that Vlad continues to collect ghostly artifacts, so it's entirely possible he could find another magical device of equal power and use. Freakshow himself comes from a family with a wide range and collection of ghostly artifacts.

It's also possible that ghosts like Undergrowth could be able to control Danny as well, as he was able to puppet Sam through his vines and plants.

Danny is still capable of breaking through the mind control, if given enough reason to. There is also proof, though, that he can do a lot of damage to himself and others before that time comes. Just food for mischievous author thought.

Plasmius Maximus

This device only appears in the episode "Maternal Instincts" but Vlad had created it to shorten out Danny's powers for three hours. This is another instance of an interesting concept that disappeared after one episode, but considering how Danny used it against Vlad, maybe the man just didn't want to risk it a second time.

Nonetheless, this does prove Danny's powers can be temporarily locked away. How this is possible isn't exactly clear, but I've taken to using a yarn knot analogy to explain it. I won't bore you with that explanation (unless you're actually interested) since it leans more into fanon and headcanons than canon.

Lesser Weaknesses

Blackmail

Now this isn't really a surprise to anyone since Danny is a good kid and most superheroes have this weakness, but Danny is very much susceptible to threats made against his family and loved ones. We see that Freakshow uses this against Danny in "Reality Trip" to make him do his dirty work, as in: collect all the pieces for the Reality Gauntlet.

We might make jokes that Danny could easily defeat anyone he comes across, but the truth of the matter is that he takes these threats seriously and he's lucky more people haven't used it against him.

Inexperience

This one is more understandable and maybe not even technically a weakness but this boy is so silly stupid sometimes it's honestly really endearing. He doesn't have the best grasp of his powers so he can make all sorts of unfortunate mistakes. Danny is the type of person who learns as he goes, and thanks to the fact his one eligible teacher also so happens to be the same guy trying to murder his father... his options are a little limited.

However, this can be easily fixed given enough time and practice. Danny might not have any formal training but he's also proven to be a very fast learner which could very well make up for whatever else he lacks. Due to the unique nature of himself and his powers, there's also a chance that even with a mentor he would still largely be self-taught.

---

It can still be pretty hard to write though. When you want to have high stakes, then you need to have a credible threat. And for a kid that has a gazillion powers, all with countless applications, it gets a lot more complicated. Honestly sometimes Danny might not have even needed the new power if he just applied one he already had in a different way? But so is the life of a teenage, overpowered superhero.

#danny phantom #character analysis #with yours truly :D #danny fenton #overpowered danny fenton #OP danny fenton #tagging for posterity #i need to find it again somehow #long post

[carigm]

MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS/LEAKS REGARDING S5 (WARNING)

Last Spring/Summer, a semi popular fandom account on Twitter got sent some leaks about S5, focused on the first half of the season. At this time, many fandom accounts were receiving supposed leaks, so our attention was a bit scattered and we didn’t focus on any of them too much. A popular leak account on Twitter (unrelated to ST) also mentioned that they had gotten the first half of S5 leaked, and that this source is “never wrong”. Now, it is hard to tell if these leaks are the same as the ones that the specific fandom account I’m talking about received, but something to keep in mind. Her leaks were given to her by a person named James (which I assume is a fake name). These leaks were also posted on Reddit, last year, by her (the person in the fandom that got the leaks from James) but some major things were omitted in that post. I’m gonna leave a link here in case you guys want to read the discussion.

I’m sharing these leaks with you because some things from them are kinda lining up with what we’re seeing from S5 production. Keep in mind that these could be fake/wrong, and James himself said he didn’t have info on the last couple of scripts.

According to James, Mike dies in Ep. 3. I’m adding more screenshots later for more context, but the gist of these leaks is that Mike bites it, mlvn never breakup nor do they get a resolution, and Byler is left up to interpretation but never really happens. (I don’t really need to get into how shitty this all is writing wise)

Let’s go over the things these leaks might have potentially gotten right, according to what we know so far.

1. James said that the time jump would occur in ep. 1, after an establishing scene where S4 left off. He said the time jump would place us in late 1987/early 1988. He also mentioned there would be a series of flashbacks showcasing stuff from before the time jump. The dates he gave do seem to be accurate, and David Harbour had a shaved head right before they went into filming, which could imply pre time jump scenes.

2. According to him, after Mike dies, they find a letter he had been writing. Some of us were theorizing Finn had a letter in his back pocket in those rooftop pics. Could’ve also been Finn’s script and he just stuck it there (who knows).

3. He said that Joyce gets badly injured in ep.3, and since there’s speculation Winona was seen filming at the hospital, some people think that means she was taken there because of her injury. It’s important to notice that Natalia, Cara, and Finn were also supposedly seen filming at the hospital, and that the production called for many extras for nurses and paramedics. So whatever they’re filming at the hospital, it might be bigger than Joyce getting injured in her leg. Let’s remember Max is at the hospital too. I’m not 100% sold on this part of the leaks.

4. Today it was revealed that they’re setting up to film at Stone Mountain. (This is where they filmed UD scenes for S4)

Apparently production might have purple tentacles out already. (UD vines?)

Cara Buono mentioned, in that video shared by Ross Duffer, that she was filming stuff from Ep.2. This was around 2 days ago.

The people that know about the leaks think this is where Mike dies in ep. 3. Here’s some further context:

Here’s some stuff he said about mlvn:

Which is just….meh, because like I said, it doesn’t look like him and El ever breakup before his supposed death. Plus Byler never gets any resolution.

Now some things that might disprove the leaks (I’m trying to be impartial here)

1. These leaks mentioned Argyle a couple of times, saying he has a hero moment at some point. Eduardo made it sound like he’s not coming back to the show, but tbh he could just be lying. He’s listed for ep.2 on IMDb (and yes I know anyone with an account can edit that site)

2. These leaks say that Mike is very insufferable for the 3 episodes he’s alive, basically lashing out at everyone, specially El, and just overall behaving like an asshole. I really didn’t get that from the ElMike rooftop scene, in fact he seemed very gentle with her. People that know about these leaks think that the rooftop scene is Mike maybe apologizing to El and them having a heart to heart, right before he dies (no comment).

All in all, if Mike is dying this early, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough. The rest of the cast is gonna be filming for like a year, and Finn will be done in like two weeks 💀

I also hope there’s more leaks soon (on Reddit) so that we might compare them to these and see wtf is up.

I know someone is gonna inevitably ask why leaks would be out almost a whole year before they started filming when we usually get them during filming or post production, but I’ve been told these leaks happened around the time the writer’s strike began, which is when they were originally gonna start filming. I was also told other shows had issues with leaks around that same time.

I don’t want to get too much into the truly awful writing we’re facing if these are real but…First, I believe it’s a total disservice to Mike’s character. One of your mains since S1 and you don’t even offer him the option of dying towards the end of the season? Even fucking Eddie got that. Two, it seems like a very easy cop out for not having to make Byler canon. Let’s just have neither ship be endgame and that way we don’t get queerbaiting allegations. It also stands in a zone too close to torture porn for my liking, because sure let’s kill the character two of the most traumatized characters in the history of TV love most. And yes, it’s also a disservice to El and Will’s characters. And lastly, if that supposed letter vaguely alludes Mike having some sort of sexuality problems (we don’t know atp) it is pretty fucked up they just killed him off like that. Sure let’s not explore any of that, but give a half assed explanation via letter ex machina. This is looking like Supernatural finale levels of bad to me.

Another point, I distinctly remember the Duffers saying, after S4, that they could never kill off a character like Mike because it would be too painful, and that ST would cease to be ST and lose its identity. They didn’t want to be like GOT. I sincerely hope they actually meant this and were not trying to be cheeky or whatever the fuck.

It would be genuinely insane, and quite frankly, a highlight of their lack of writing abilities.

I hope the leaks are wrong, but I felt like it was necessary to warn everyone just in case. I know I’m not watching something this awful.

#byler #stranger things #st5 spoilers #st5 leaks #mike wheeler #mileven

[m1d-45]

new sprouts

summary: chongyun in liyue, what will he find? the devil, maybe. god? certainly.

word count: ~1.7k

-> warnings: uh. injury? blood mention. minor spoilers for chongyun lore?

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me

< prev || < masterlist >

chongyun ran as quickly as he could, weaving between the scraggly trees. the ground beneath him shook, shards of geo biting into the sandbearers around him. the vishaps were quick, more vicious than usual. he wasn’t here for them, having simply been going for a walk, but it seems like his day was about to be far more eventful than he expected.

he pulled himself up into a tree to avoid an attack, the branches shaking as the vishap ran into the trunk. he wasn’t strong enough for this, not by a long shot, not when they were clearly enhanced by whatever malicious energy was in the area. he’d be better off calling in the millelith, or an adepti to deal with the source of energy.

the vishaps clawed at the tree and he looked around, frantic. he didn’t have nearly enough elemental energy in his vision to pull off a big attack yet, and liyue was far more favorable to the vishaps’ claws. he couldn’t run, he couldn’t climb, he’d have to hide, but where?

he climbed higher into the tree, balancing precariously on slightly too small branches. the tree was close enough to a cliff he could jump to it, maybe making it to the top before the vishaps if he was quick enough, but what then? what if there was nothing up there? half the cliff was obscured by the leaves anyway, what if it was an impossible climb? what if-

the tree shook again, something cracking loudly, and he jumped for the cliff before he could think. he slipped a few inches, but was able to find holds easily enough, pulling himself up the rock as quickly as he could. still, it was steep, and he could hear the scrape of claws below him rapidly approaching. there was a dark crack in the cliff halfway between him and the top, but there wasn’t any negative energy bleeding from it. it looked thin enough the vishaps couldn’t get in, and as he got closer he saw light coming from it… with only a moment’s hesitation, he climbed inside.

he could hear the vishaps clawing at the entrance but didn’t try to turn back, pulling himself deeper. one reached deep enough to cut down his side, tearing through his clothes, but he didn’t focus on that. the crack led somewhere, he could see the room open up, he just needed a few more feet to get there. he reached for the edge, his fingers stinging where he’d scuffed them, and pulled. the stone walls bit into him, as if found their best to keep him out, but with a final push he was free, falling to the floor.

chongyun took a moment to breathe, vision pulsing as he cooled himself down. adrenaline pumped through his body, persistent even through his breathing exercises. his head spun, the coolness of the cave doing little to help. he should look around the cave, make sure he’s safe, but he didn’t sense any dangerous energy. the vishaps had stopped tearing at the entrance, and he could only hope it wasn’t because there was an alternate entrance.

wind ghosted over his face, something soft brushing his nose. he opened his eyes, met with the surprising sight of a geo crystal fly. they were normally skittish, fleeing from anything that moved… how strange.

he sat up, the crystalfly fluttering away as he turned. the cave was big, roughly circular, lush plants growing along the walls. light fell through cracks in the ceiling, lighting up the wings of crystalflies as they flew lazily, an impossible amount of life sustained by so little resources. in the center of the room was a stone pedestal, sides too uniform to be natural, a woven bowl of vines sitting atop it.

a quick glance with elemental sight revealed an obvious abundance of elemental energy, dendro lining the walls and floor. what was surprising was the fact that the stone beneath it, including the pedestal, contained far more geo energy than normal. behind the vine wall in the center was something brimming with energy, all seven elements flocking to a core he couldn’t make out.

was this was the vishaps were so protective of? if he felt for it, the core was giving off a peaceful aura, stronger than his own yang, but it was suppressed. the vines, perhaps?

he tried to stand and gave up just as fast, his side burning with pain. he pulled his first aid supplies from his inventory, checking the damage. the cut was shallow, thankfully, stretched down most of his side. he was lucky he’d gotten as far in as he did, or who knows what would have happened.

several crystalflies flew over as he patched himself up, watching curiously. he tried not to pay attention, focusing on keeping his hands steady, but it was hard not to be curious. while most of the crystalflies were geo, there were some anemo and dendro ones as well. it’s strange, this cave is strange, and he can’t tell if he should run for backup or try to deal with it himself.

he pools cryo in his hand and presses it to his side to help dull the pain, stumbling to his feet. the crystalflies stay around him as he slowly walks for the vine bowl. but they knit closer as he approaches, forming a bubble to hide the core from him.

“oh, come on…” he reached for the vines, but thorns sprouted in an instant. he tried to freeze them with his vision but they were resilient, refusing to die. when he pulled his hands away, the frost melted in the next moment, quickly returning to bright green. it was like they absorbed his cryo, feeding it into the core. for what it’s worth, the vines seemed to loosen slightly, at least slightly weakened. so to access the core, he’d have to…

he should probably leave, go find the millelith or call in an adeptus, but something about the core drew him in. he should feel afraid, that he was so attracted to something he couldn’t even see, but… archons, he couldn’t just leave.

he took his hand from his side, placing both on the area he’d frozen prior. the thorns had disappeared at some point, allowing him to press directly onto the vines themselves. with a deep breath and a quick reassessment of his injury, he drew on his vision once more.

within a few moments, his wound began to ache again, but he didn’t pay it any mind. he kept his breath measured and the flow of cryo smooth; a slight sting when he fully inhaled wasn’t anything. he needed to get to the core, irrationally so, something about it drawing him in. it couldn’t wait, he couldn’t stop, his injury would be fine as long as he kept going.

crystalflies began to land on the vine shield, drawn to either the core or the energy he was pouring into it. whatever it was, it was important, important enough that the bubble only began to recess once his vision began to flicker. he leaned on the stone pedestal, breathing heavily, fumbling for a popsicle from his inventory. the vines unknit reluctantly, revealing several layers of elemental energy. first hydro, frosted over in one spot by his cryo. then a thin film of geo, crumbling away, and finally a blue sheen of anemo. so many elements, all refusing to react with each other…

the anemo faded into pale mist, his popsicle nearly falling from his hand in shock. the core of this cave, the thing the vishaps were protecting, the thing drawing him in so strongly… was you?

you, the imposter? you were what the world wanted to defend so fiercely?

…what he had wanted to find so desperately?

he bit another piece from his popsicle, moving his hand from the stone back to his side to soothe the growing pain. he was torn, conflicted about your presence here. you were clearly well taken care of, without a speck of dirt on your skin, but.. you were supposed to be hated. you were the imposter, right? yet all this life, these elements, the vishaps just outside- it shouldn’t be possible. there already was a creator on the throne, and they wanted you dead and gone, but the only thing capable of keeping this cave alive-…

for the first time in his life, chongyun got chills.

(the weather is good in liyue. unusually so. the sun is warm and the breeze is cool, the waters lapping gently at the shore. it’s as if the world can finally breathe, relaxing from the tense storms of the past few months. people find themself with a bit more mora than they had before, or perhaps they find something long lost.)

(the adepti look down from the clouds, glancing at each other in unease. hooves meet the ground in nerves, hands tensing, ready to reach for weapons.)

(the elements are calm in liyue. for the past few months, they’d needed to call in the assistance of the anemo archon to relieve the winds that wanted to rage. the stone has settled, the key lines calm.)

(“what do we do?” nothing. “what did we do?” nothing. red ropes lay tight, a gloved hand set on a mask, both ready to fight against whatever storm comes after this calm.)

(the earth is at ease in liyue. the tianquan steps out of her jaded chamber, yuheng at her side. she watches her city, the port, the taste of imported wine still sweet hours later. the night is cool, the moon reflecting off the waves in rippling lines, and yet both are tense.)

(“perhaps the creator has calmed?”)

(a shake of the head, a twist of the lips.)

(the crystalflies fly calm in liyue. relaxed, happy, content. nobody knows why; nobody but one.)

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin sagau #self aware genshin #sagau #sagau chongyun #chongyun #i have been On Planes and other places where i could not write; alas #uh tags tags i know how to do this (lying) #gn reader #no i don’t help #gender neutral reader #eeaeauoaiieuoaueoie #:] help :] #blease #my brain: ‘music makes you lose control music makes you lose control music makes you-‘ #uhhhhhh can i get a beesechurger? #can i phone a friend— #genshin imposter au #sagau impostor au #genshin self aware au

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: Through the Vine

Surrounded by some of the most coveted vineyards on the continent, your party sits in the shaded garden and listens to the old alchemist explaining why she needs your help getting drunk enough to see the face of god.

Every adventurer knows the name Ultani, at least those with coin and taste enough to order bottles of wine when they and their friends hit up a tavern after a delve. What an irony then for one of the Ultani family to ask for THEM at her table, and with a business proposition of all things.

Bent with age but bright of eye, Ivilia Ultani needs their help tracking down the location of an abandoned druid sanctum in the far wilderness and retrieving fruit sacred to the god of vintners and healers left over from a disastrous ritual. Her reasons? Apparently after decades perusing the alchemical mysteries Ivilia got her hands on a bottle blessed by the wine-god himself, and spent four days in a state of drunken revelation pencilling out her magnum opus. The bottle and her inspiration dry just before she finished, so rather than waiting years trying to trial and error the last piece or searching for another bottle she's decided to make some of her own.

Along the way the party will contend with family drama, the cutthroat politics of the wine trade, and the long echoing consequences of stealing from merciful gods. For their troubles they'll not only earn the thanks of a talented alchemist, but also potentially a new home should they hold true to their task.

Setup: Though she is the oldest of her of her merchant clan Ivilia is not the head of the Ultani winery. Her younger brother Valtar had the talent for cultivation and business while she veered towards eccentric scholarship, now Valtar's adult grandchildren run the business and the numerous sprawling vineyards associated with it while she lives in learned obscurity on the original family homestead.

While she occasionally helps out whit a new formulation of fertilizer or pest repellent, Ivilia is rather distant from the rest of the Ultani family who view her as a bit of a kook, who all to often uses her inherited share of the enterprise to buy obscure texts or finance futile experiments.

Challenges & Complications:

Actually finding the sanctum is going to be half the problem. Druidic orders are notoriously protective about the location of their secret clubhouses, and this order was scattered to the wind more than a century ago. Ivilia has tracked down the vague location where she thinks the sanctum might be, but unless the party wants to spend days combing the dangerous wilderness they're going to need to track down a more reliable source. Parsing through local rumours and records gives them three leads, an elf who still provides council to the local Count (goodluck getting an appointment), a vaguely helpful ditty that was recounted to a local bard (since dramatized in endless retelling), and an elder of the order who flew back to his home village in the shape of a falcon. Investigating the latter finds that the elder was apparently so scarred by what he'd seen at the sanctum that he transformed himself into a tree and has spent the intervening decades letting his mind and memory lignify.

The Sanctum itself and the landscape that surrounds it has been scarred by an act of divine wrath that still lingers in the form of dangerous fey and choking vines. Roots have undermined the walls and foundations, making chambers all to easy to collapse. In the centre of this ruin lays the undead corpse of Elmgrace , a once famed elven healer who sought the boon of the god Litirenn only to try and use that gift to reign the god towards his own purposes. Resentful at this deception Litirenn unleashed havoc on the sanctum, cursing Elmgrace never to die, never to rot, and never to rejoin the cycle of nature. Forever vinebound to the same altar he intended for the deity, Elmgrace's few last fanatical followers still tend to his broken body, attempting to brew up more potent poisons that will finally "free" their teacher from his torment.

Unfortunately, the fruit the party needs to pluck grows only from the plants impaling Elmgrace's body, which his followers are very protective of. Even after the party races through the wilderness and back to civilization with their prize they'll need to look over their shoulder for toxin obsessed cultists stalking their trail.

Further Adventures:

Milo Ultani has something to prove, the oldest of four siblings and a gaggle of cousins poised to inherit the winery he was raised to value hard work and loyalty to the family above all else. All his life it has irked him that his great aunt was allowed to dwell in their ancestral home, some of the nicest land his family owns, leaching off their enterprise like a withered limb. What finally drives him to act is Ivilia offhandedly mentioning that she intends to sign over her house and land to the party as a reward for helping her drink her way to enlightenment again. Resentment turns to rage in the young man's mind as a plan begins to form; A vine must be pruned in order to be fruitful after all.

When the party return with the godly fruit they're going to find Ivilia gone, her home broken into during the night her bed a mess of red that at first seems to be blood, but is infact wine. Surrounded by experts it doesn't take long for the vino in question to be identified as belonging to Jadash Hill, one of the Ultani's oldest rivals who are known for their unscrupulous business practices. It's at this point that Milo comes forward, reporting that some of their carters had gotten into brawls with those from Jadash Hill at a local tollhouse, sending the bastards packing and ignoring their threats of reprisal as idle boasting. This did indeed happen, but only because Milo is in charge of part of the family's delivery operation and instigated the fight himself.

The clock is ticking, the party has a bushel of miracle fruit that's going to rot and the alchemist they were supposed to deliver it to is nowhere to be seen. They can either find Ivilia quick, figure out a method of preserving the fruit, or read through her notes and attempt to concoct the divine wine themselves.

However badly he thinks of her, Milo would never kill his great aunt, having instead had his loyal carters drag her off to a small cottage on the edge of a property the family was keeping fallow for the year. In his reckoning the old woman won't live much longer, and while the emerging feud with Jadash hill keeps the family busy he can figure out a better place to keep his great aunt locked up. He wasn't delicate in his planning but he moves fast and the influence he has with the workforce as the presumptive heir cannot be overstated.

Art 1 Art 2

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #ttprg #pathfinder #adventure #dungeon #player home #Alchemy #mid level #low level #Litirenn #field #Forest #druid #patron merchant #dungeon forest #dungeon jungle

[agendabymooner]

the royal wildcard ! esteban o. x ofc (british princess!actress!ofc)

summary: albertine ‘albie’ spencer was born months before her parents got divorced and years later, she plays a massive role as a royal rebel and a certain alpine-renault’s partner. somehow, the british media didn’t get a glance at another surprise that came directly from the source.

content warning: princess ofc without the princess manners, esteban ocon is a nerd and i love him ur honour, vine + hamilton reference (nothing cringe i promise), royal family issue, absence of father and mother figure, wedding/marriage announcement, pierre gasly appearance

note: changed my profile and posted this! i couldn’t go to sleep knowing i should just post this now. press the photos to view the whole posts. enjoy xx

masterlist

tagged estebanocon

liked by pierregasly, mickschumacher, lance_stroll

user1 you and your what 😀😀

user2 say sike rn albie.

user3 is that a croissant in estie’s hand

user4 why are you worried about the uneaten croissant? she literally just called him husband 😭

albertinespencer he accidentally dropped the croissant

user3 STAWPPPP HE ACTUALLY DROPPED THE CROISSANT? 😭

lance_stroll he actually made you a spider-man fan oh my god liked by albertinespencer

albertinespencer i was being watched as i changed my watch background

kitty.spencer that mask is not a good disguise if you were to ask me 😂 liked by albertinespencer

albertinespencer we hardly tried 😂

kitty.spencer i’ll teach you more about disguising when you and estie visit uk 😉

user5 i can no longer sleep knowing that estie is now prince esteban

user6 this is the wildest of all wildcards to have happened this season ngl

estebanocon i didn’t think you’d see me looking at that photo of you and spiderman 🥲 liked by albertinespencer

albertinespencer but i love you for it, my darling ❤️

pierregasly next time invite me on one of your trips smh 😠 liked by albertinespencer

albertinespencer i didn’t know one piece of french comes in a pack of two did i?

tagged albertinespencer

liked by joshoconnor, harrystyles, charles_leclerc

charles_leclerc siuuuuuuuu liked by estebanocon

user1 the subtle spiderman things 😭 he got her hooked on marvel fr

user2 diana’s ring being matched with esteban’s own has got to be the sweetest shit i can cry on 😩 how long have you two been planning this??

estebanocon i’ve had it in my mind for two years!

user2 STAWP you’re making me fall harder for you

kitty.spencer you two are so perfect together 😍😘 liked by estebanocon

estebanocon this is a lot coming from you kit! ❤️

landonorris can’t believe that MY PRINCESS is married to my friend

user3 now bow down to prince estie lololol you too georgerussell63 alex_albon

alex_albon i always pegged her as a jude bellingham fan tbh

georgerussell63 meh, she gave mason mount vibes :/

albertinespencer 🥲 i support west ham

alex_albon boooooooo 👎

user4 short wife 🤝 tall husband liked by estebanocon

albertinespencer stoooop because you’re goofy smile literally had me when i walked down the aisle liked by estebanocon

albertinespencer like i almost tripped love 😩 i almost lost half of our dignity in one go liked by estebanocon

albertinespencer it doesn’t matter as long as you know i’d fall for you in a literal sense, anything hardly matters liked by estebanocon

albertinespencer here’s to the time we have ahead of us mon cœur!!! i love you so much estie 🍾🥂💕 liked by estebanocon

estebanocon you’re one of a kind, ma reine 😍

bonus !!!

#formula one fanfiction #formula one fic #formula one imagine #formula one x oc #formula one smau #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 smau #f1 fanfic #formula one x reader #formula one instagram au #formula one ig au #esteban ocon imagine #esteban ocon x reader #esteban ocon fic #esteban ocon smau #esteban ocon social media au #esteban ocon #esteban ocon instagram au #esteban ocon ig au #eo31 #esteban ocon fanfiction #esteban ocon fluff #esteban ocon x oc #f1 instagram au #f1 x reader #f1 ig au #f1 x oc #formula 1 instagram au #formula 1 x reader

[sequinsmile-x]

Physical Touch

He usually loved when his wife touched him, but it was slowly driving him crazy.

Part of the Love Languages series

-x-

Hi friends!

Well...I should have expected that the smut fic would win the poll by a landslide and here we are haha

I really hope you enjoy this <3 it's soft, smutty and full of Aaron just...pining for his wife. What more could you want on a Thursday evening?

Please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Words: 3k

Warnings: Smut, 18+

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

He’d known she was tactile long before they got together. 

Aaron had watched her for years, always ready to place a comforting hand on someone’s shoulder or pull them into a hug. More than once he’d found himself wishing she’d do the same for him, the embargo they’d seemingly placed on physical contact between them a two-way thing, something they both upheld, as if they knew it was a line they could not cross. 

He’d held her hand once before they became them. It was when she was in hospital, before she was stable enough to be moved to Bethesda. She’d still mostly been out of it, pain and medication rolling through her in a way he was also familiar with. He’d held her hand, squeezing it tightly as he wore the suit he’d worn to her funeral, a bitter taste on his tongue as he apologised to her. She’d told him since that she thought she’d dreamt it, that she’d pulled him out of her imagination, the warmth of his hand around hers something she’d made up in some strange attempt to self-soothe. 

He’d always known she was tactile, but being in a relationship with her was a whole other level he hadn’t been anticipating. She touched him all the time, ranging from subtle moments, like her fingers trailing over his when she passed him a coffee or a case file, or squeezing his knee under the table when they were at Dave’s for dinner, to more obvious moments. She was a snuggler, something he would never have put money on before their first date. She would wrap herself around him like a vine whenever they were alone, her arm linked through his and her head on his shoulder as they sat on the couch, or she could lay half on top of him in bed, her hand sneaking under his t-shirt as she sought his warmth from the source, falling asleep to the comfort of his heartbeat. 

He loved it. He loved that his wife expressed her love that way, that she’d push his hair out of his face as she told him he needed a haircut, that she also loved their children in the same way. It’s one of the reasons he knew Jack and Violet always sought her out for comfort, her embrace was his place of safety too, something so calming about something as simple as her cheek against his shoulder that he wondered how he'd ever lived without it. 

He usually loved it, but it was slowly driving him crazy. 

He’d dislocated his shoulder in a takedown of an unsub two months ago. The injury had torn his rotator cuff and he’d needed surgery, a simple relocation of his shoulder joint not enough. He could still remember the fear in Emily’s eyes when he’d come round from surgery, how she was barely holding herself together, her grip on his wedding ring that he’d had to take off so tight the imprint lasted for hours. His shoulder had been immobilised with strict instructions on how to make sure he healed properly, and the only time his wife ever paid attention to medical advice to the letter was when it was for him or one of the kids, which had led to one, unfortunate, side effect. 

Aaron hadn’t had sex with his wife in two months. 

He missed her. She was right by his side, but he missed her. Missed the intimacy that had always been an important part of their relationship. Every tiny thing about her was getting to him the longer they went without having sex. Her beauty was bordering on obscene, as it always had, and his breath would catch in his chest whenever he looked at her, or if she walked by and he caught a sniff of her perfume, the scent he knew was simply her always following just afterwards. Even watching her with Jack and Violet, watching how good a mother she was filled his gut with want, with the desire to have more children with her as soon as possible. 

The touching was, however, by far the worst. Every time she touched him he felt his skin fizz, sparks set off just by the feel of her skin against his, and he was close to losing his mind. 

He hears a knock on his office door and he looks up, a smile immediately breaking out across his face when he sees Emily standing in the doorway, her arms crossed as she casually leans against the door frame. 

“Hey honey,” she says, stepping into the office, “Are you ready to go? We, and by we I mean you, promised Vi we’d pick up some dessert on the way home.” 

He chuckles as he thinks about his 2, almost 3, year old daughter. She was a mini Emily through and through, right down to the big dark brown eyes he couldn’t say no to. He stands up and starts to put some paperwork in his briefcase, and he raises his eyebrow at his wife as he looks up at her. 

“You say that like you can say no to her,” he quips, stepping out from behind his desk and walking over to her, quickly stamping his lips against hers.

She hums and kisses him again, her hand hooking around the back of his head, making him shiver as she scratches lightly at his scalp, “We both know I’m the bad cop at home, baby,” she says, kissing him once more before she pulls back, “One of us has to be.” 

He laughs, the sound dying in his throat when she reaches out and places her hand on his chest, rubbing gently at the lapel on his jacket. He can feel her touch through his clothes, her skin somehow burning him through his jacket and his shirt, and he tenses before he can control it. Emily frowns at him, her eyebrows pinching together as she pulls back. 

“You had some lint on you,” she explains, pressing her lips together as she looks him up and down, her eyes slightly narrowed as she tries to figure out what's wrong, “Aaron are you okay? Is your shoulder bothering you?” 

It’s not a lie, not really, because his shoulder was sore. A now familiar ache that got worse throughout the day, radiating outwards from the new scar he bore. It was easier than explaining to her how he was feeling, less embarrassing than admitting he wanted her so much he was thinking about pushing everything off his desk right here and now. 

There were still two weeks until the doctor’s initial advice would run out, and he knew it was going to be the longest two weeks of his life. 

“Yeah,” he says, smiling softly at her, rolling his shoulder slightly, “It just aches a bit.” 

She hums and places her hand on it, her concern deepening when he tenses again, “How about when the monsters are in bed I give you a massage?” 

He falters for a moment, sure that would be his undoing, but instead, he nods and decides to deflect as he places his hand on her lower back and guides her out of his office. 

“Why do you get to call them monsters, but I don’t?” He asks, knowing exactly what her answer is going to be. 

She scoffs playfully and looks up at him, her eyes narrowed, “Because one of them came out of me.” 

___

By the time they get the kids to bed, he thinks she’s forgotten. The evening had passed them by with homework, bath time, and bedtime stories, a wonderfully normal evening they both once thought they’d never get. 

He walks into their bedroom to find her kneeling on the bed, wearing one of his t-shirts and a tiny pair of shorts sticking out from underneath, with a bottle of lotion in hand.

She smiles at him, popping open the lid on the lotion as she beckons him over, “Come on, honey,” she says, “I promised you a massage.” She sees the slight hesitation before he walks over, and she hides a smirk by clearing her throat. He sits on the edge of the bed and she rolls her eyes, placing the lotion on the bed before she runs her hands over his shoulders, her fingers meeting at his neck as she starts to undo his shirt buttons, “This works better if you don’t wear your shirt.” 

He nods and helps her get his shirt off, grateful that he’d slipped his tie off when he got home earlier, and he lets the shirt fall to the ground. She puts some of the lotion into her hands and rubs them together before she touches him, warming her palms and the lotion at the same time. 

It’s only when she starts spreading it on his skin, her touch firm but gentle as she pushes her thumbs into his bad shoulder, that he realises she’s using her lotion. One that had a slight spice to it, a scent of cinnamon that followed her everywhere that was now permeating into his skin. He groans, his teeth clenched as he breathes her in, widening his legs as his pants get tighter. 

She frowns, ready to pull away just in case she is hurting him, but then she looks over his shoulder, her lips pressed together as her cheeks flush when she sees the tenting of his pants. She makes a snap decision, wiping her palms on her shirt to get rid of the excess lotion before she climbs out from behind him. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, his eyebrow raised as she kneels on the floor in front of him, her hands already on his belt, undoing it quickly. 

“Come on, Aaron,” she says, unbuttoning his pants and moving them and his boxers just far enough to free him, “It hasn’t been that long,” she says, smiling in a way that seemed far too innocent for where her hand was, “I’ve seen how you’ve been looking at me,” she says, pumping him up and down, “Let me help.” 

He nods, not needing any convincing, and his eyes drift shut as she leans forward and takes him in her mouth. He wraps his fists around the sheets of the bed so tightly he thinks they might rip. 

“Fuck, Em. You’re so good at that,” he says, unable to stop himself from thrusting into her throat, the pressure that had been building him in for weeks threatening to blow, “So fucking good.” 

She leans forward until her nose briefly presses against his pubic bone before she pulls back, sucking in a breath before she moves in again, bobbing her head up and down, his chorus of groans her reward. She has to press her thighs together for some friction, so turned on by seeing and hearing him like this that she briefly forgets why it had been so long since they’d done this in the first place. She can feel him start to lose control, his thrusts getting messier, but he stops her, his hand on her shoulder as he encourages her backwards, a desperate look in his eyes. 

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, getting rid of the spit that had connected her lip to the tip of him and she tilts her head, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, pushing his hands through her hair that he’d clearly messed up, unaware that he’d even grasped it, “I just want to be with you.”

She smiles devilishly, her tongue pressed into her cheek, chasing the taste of him from it, “You are with me.” 

He rolls his eyes at her. He’d missed this too, the ease that came with being with her like this, the familiarity to it. It could be rough, passionate. Tearing each other’s clothes off. Or it could be soft. Full of love and hands pressed together as they showed each other how much they loved each other. 

“You know what I mean, sweetheart,” he says, and she smiles and nods, standing up from where she’d been kneeling. She pulls his pants off the rest of the way and then stands up, ready to straddle him, her desire making her dizzy. It’s only when she leans in to kiss him, her gaze briefly lingering on the new scar on his shoulder, and everything comes back into sharp focus.

“Wait,” she says breathlessly, pulling away from him, “We shouldn’t do this, your doctor-”

“Sweetheart,” he cuts her off, barely recognising his own voice because of how thick it is with desire, rough and gravelly as he stares at her, “You started this.” 

She scoffs, “I started this? You’re the one who got an erection when I just barely touched your shoulder.” 

In any other circumstance, he’s sure he’d laugh. It was so like her to try and start an argument in the middle of sex it made him fall in love with her even more, a feat that always seemed impossible until it happened. He pulls her closer, grateful not for the first time this evening that it wasn’t his dominant shoulder that had been injured, “Because you’re so fucking gorgeous I couldn’t take it anymore.” 

She swallows thickly and looks him up and down, desire sparking under her skin. It had been a long two months for her too, her frustration at not being able to have him so intense she’d yelled at Derek twice in the last week alone when he hadn’t deserved it. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she admits, her voice cracking slightly.  He smiles softly, the pent-up, overwhelming, need for her fading for a moment as he reaches out and cups her cheek, tucking some of her unruly hair behind her ear.

“You never could.” 

She thinks about it for a moment before she nods leaning forward to stamp her lips against his before she briefly gets off the bed, dropping her shorts to the ground, “Lean up against the headboard.” 

He does as he’s told, and she pulls a pillow from her side of the bed and slots it between his bad shoulder and the headboard, smiling softly when he stamps a grateful kiss against her lips. She sits on his lap, groaning as she notches over him, a noise he returns when he feels just how wet she is. 

“Fuck, Em,” he says, his hands on her hips as she pulls her t-shirt off, “I’ve barely even touched you.” 

“Yeah, well” she breathes out, rocking her hips over him, “You’re not the only one who’s been missing this,” she says as she wraps her hand around him to guide him into her. 

They both groan as she sinks onto him, the familiar stretch making them both breathless for a moment. 

“Oh fuck,” she says, her eyes rolling back as her head falls backwards for a moment, her hands on his thighs as she clenches around him, the breath stolen from her lungs as she adjusts to him, “God you feel so good.” 

“You do too, sweetheart,” he grunts out, encouraging her closer, tugging at her until they are chest to chest, bare skin pressed against each other as he rests his forehead against hers, “You feel so fucking good.” 

She cups his cheeks, her hands on either side of his face as she keeps her forehead against his and starts to rock her hips against his, a sound she could only call a relieved chuckle escaping her as he meets her thrust for thrust. 

They fall into a familiar rhythm, a sense of desperation woven through it, their eyes locked together as they both move, lost in the feel of each other. Eventually, he feels her hips start to stutter, and her thighs tremble around him. He reaches between them with his good hand and rubs circles on her clit, smiling as she mewls at him, the sound close to obscene as she buries her face in his neck, just about able to remember their children were sleeping down the hall.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he says, increasing the pressure on her clit, feeling his own orgasm within reach, “Come for me. Let me feel it.” 

She clenches her teeth tightly as she comes, stopping herself from screaming out as her hips buck against him. A spark goes off in her belly and spreads through her entire body, every nerve ending on fire as it washes over her as she moans his name. He isn’t far behind her, the way she clenches around him as she comes the final push he needs, and he buries his face in the top of her hair, her name lost in the dark locks stuck to her with sweat. 

They fall into silence, just the sound of their heavy breathing surrounding them. She’s the first to pull back, smiling lazily at him as she kisses him quickly before she pulls back to look at him, checking him over as if she’s looking for damage. She looks at the scar, placing her hand over it as she still tries to catch her breath, “I hope we didn’t make it worse.” 

“It’s fine, baby,” he says, kissing her temple and then her cheek, encouraging her to turn her head so he can capture her lips in a kiss, “Besides, since when were you such a stickler for doctor’s orders?” 

She playfully narrows her eyes at him but doesn’t pull back, not wanting to put any space between them yet, “I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Right,” he says jokingly, stamping a kiss against her lower lip, stuck out in a pout she’d always deny, “So it wasn’t you who I caught trying to drive to the store less than two weeks after she had a c-section? My mistake.” 

She blows out a breath and shakes her head at him, her cheeks somehow flushing even though the blush from her orgasm had never gone away, “That was totally different.” 

He chuckles and kisses her, properly this time, and he smiles as he pulls back, “Sure, sweetheart. Whatever you say.” 

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[ectoentity]

Ectoplasm Gives You Wings - Flying Lesson

New scene for this fic! This one is a bit of a doozy: nearly 3k words just for one scene.

Masterpost/Subscription Post for this fic.

DPxDC, T-rated Genfic

Context: This scene is the second time Danny has met Red Hood.

The problem with a city like Gotham - or at least this part of it - was that there were very few open spots away from prying eyes. Even rooftops often had cameras near the access door, or looking over from the next building over. Danny got that people here were paranoid about crime and potential supervillain attacks. He didn't blame them. He just wished he had somewhere private to practice flying.

After weeks of searching, he finally found something. There was a corner of one park that looked like it had been allowed to grow wild for years. The remnants of a half-collapsed pavilion were completely overgrown with vines and flowers. There were even skinny saplings growing out of what might have once been a sandbox. People didn't go there. Danny couldn’t find any cameras aimed at it. This was as close to privacy as he could get.

Danny found a stump that was about two feet tall and stood on top of it. He spread out his wings. The muscles ached as he stretched them, too used to being folded close against his back. Danny awkwardly flapped them. It felt a bit ridiculous. He knew the basic physics of how flight worked. The air underneath the wing moved more slowly than the air on top of it, creating a pressure differential that caused lift. He just wasn't sure how that translated to flapping. Did he have to lean a certain way to get the right angle?

"Come on, Fenton. Bird brains do this every day. It can't be that hard."

He crouched down on the stump, wings arched over himself. Then he leapt into the air. He desperately flapped his wings downward. For a moment it actually worked. Instead of falling, he stayed where he was. Half a second later, the sensation was gone. Danny tilted to the side and hit the ground with a heavy thump.

"Ow."

Someone laughed. Danny shot up in an instant and spun to the source of the noise. A tall woman with red hair and green skin leaned against one of the pavilion's remaining pillars. Danny instantly knew why this part of the park was overgrown.

"You're not the kind of bird I expected to find out here," Poison Ivy said with a faint smile.

"I. Uh, I am really sorry, Ms. Ivy. I didn’t realize this was your park. I'll just..." Danny edged back towards his backpack. Poison Ivy rolled her eyes.

"As long as you don’t hurt the plants, you're fine. Stay away from the red flowers if you like keeping your limbs."

Danny stared at Poison Ivy. "What. Really? You're not gonna murder me for stepping on the grass?"

"Nature is more resilient than you think. If you get too rough, you'll get one warning." She smiled at him. Danny didn't know if that was good or not.

"My friend thinks you're cool," he blurted out when he couldn't think of anything to say. "In junior high she got detention for wearing a Justice for Ivy shirt she made. She's like. Extra-Vegan or something? I don't really get it, but she's really into environmentalism and stuff." The words sounded lame to his ears, so Danny couldn't imagine how dumb he must sound to the supervillain. Her eyebrows raised for a bit, looking a bit surprised, and then her face shifted to a muted frown.

"Well, I'm glad to know there are some children with sense." It looked like she was going to say something else, but her gaze was caught by something in the sky. Now that Danny was listening, he could hear the sound of wings. He wasn’t terribly surprised when Red Hood landed in front of them.

"Two visitors in a day? What a surprise." Ivy didn't smile at Hood, but she didn't seem like she was about to attack him either.

"You're a popular lady," Hood said. "How've you been, Ivy?"

"Just tending to my garden, keeping some rodents on their toes. I'm sure I can find something to keep you busy if you're bored."

Ivy's words were sharp, threatening in a way they hadn’t been when she was talking to Danny. He started to slowly edge his way closer to his backpack. If they were about to fight Danny didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

"Mask's keeping me busy enough, thanks," Red Hood answered. His head moved to keep track of Danny. Shit.

Apparently Ivy noticed it too. She smirked, her posture relaxing. "Oh, I see. Are you starting a little flock of your own?"

"Hell no," Danny sputtered at the same time that Hood said "Cut it, Isley." For some reason that only made Ivy smile more. Were they enemies or friends? Danny couldn't tell what was going on.

"You ought to teach your baby bird how to fly before he gets eaten, Hood."

"Hey! I'm not doing that bad."

"You landed on your face," Poison Ivy, the superpowered ecoterrorist with a doctorate, tattled. Red Hood snorted.

"I was about to offer," he said. "Sorry for trying to be polite."

Danny reached his bag and picked it up, but didn't put it on. Putting it on over his wings without going intangible was a frustrating task, and he wanted to be able to run if he had to. "I can figure it out on my own. I don’t need a babysitter."

"Do I look like a babysitter, kid?" Red Hood drawled. He dropped his hands to his sides with the palms facing Danny, as if to emphasize the twin pistols holstered at his waist. It would be a fair point to anyone whose parents didn’t regularly work on ray guns at the dinner table, Danny supposed. "I just wanna make sure you know how to get out of trouble. If you can't fly, all those things do is make you a bigger target."

Danny glared at him. That blank helmet didn't give away any indication of what Hood was thinking or how honest he was being. If there was anything he'd learned in the last few weeks, it was that good things usually came with a catch.

"For what it's worth," Poison Ivy interjected, "you're safer with Hood around than most other places in this city."

Oh great, the supervillains were teaming up against him.

"Do you offer to tutor all the homeless kids you find, or just the ones that remind you of yourself?" Danny spat. He didn't want some fruit loop in a helmet projecting on him. Poison Ivy burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. Red Hood seemed to sigh.

"I do tutor kids, actually," he grumbled. "You should come by the community center on Seventh sometime."

That caught Danny off guard. He had seen that there was a community center there, but he wasn't sure whether it was another place that would hand him back to his parents. If Red Hood was involved with it, maybe they wouldn't. Who cared about catching a runaway kid when the area's murderous gang boss was there?

"Fine," Danny said. "But we're staying here. Uh, if that's okay with you, ma'am." He belatedly looked to Poison Ivy for her approval. Danny might not entirely trust Poison Ivy, but he figured it was better to stay here than to follow Red Hood off somewhere else. Ivy had recovered from her laughing fit. She looked over at Red Hood with narrowed eyes and slightly pursed lips, thinking it over.

"As long as you both behave, you're welcome to stay."

"Thank you, Ms. Ivy."

"I promise not to step on your murder begonias," Red Hood said. Instead of being angry, Ivy just rolled her eyes.

"I'll leave you boys to it." Poison Ivy waved at them as she walked off, the branches of trees closing to block the path off behind her.

"She's a lot less murder happy than I expected," Danny commented when he figured she might be out of hearing range.

"Ivy isn't as scary evil as a lot of media claims," Red Hood said. "She won't hesitate to feed you to her plants if you come out here with a hatchet, though." He shrugged and started taking off his heavy jacket. Now that Danny was looking, he could tell it wasn't a normal jacket that he'd just cut the back out of. It was made with holes for his wings, and the fabric between the lower part of his wings and the bottom of the jacket buttoned together to look a bit like a normal jacket. Red Hood undid all the buttons before pulling the whole thing up off his wings. Danny was a bit jealous. He'd had to cut holes in his clothes, and it was a struggle to get them on right.

"Alright, kid, spread your wings out?"

Hesitantly, Danny did as he was told. He still wasn't used to seeing the limbs stretch out on the edges of his vision. Danny himself had only really gotten a good look at them once. He'd taken a nap in a mall fitting room not long after getting off the bus in Gotham. There he'd been able to take a look at his wings in the store's large mirrors. They were mostly white, with black on the lower edge of the wing. There were black lines higher up in three rows, each progressively more spotty. The pattern was the same on the back as on the front. If not for the fact that they'd gotten him chased out of his home, Danny would almost think they were pretty.

Red Hood circled around him, looking his wings over. Danny didn't know what he was looking for. Other than having wings in the first place, Danny didn't think there was anything unusual about them.

"Okay, first lesson," Red Hood said. "There are different kinds of wings. They're good for different things." He spread out his left wing all the way. "What can you tell about the shape?"

"Uh... other than big?" Danny looked back at his own wing and tried to compare it. What if he thought about them like plane wings? He knew a little bit about how those worked, and there were different types for different jobs."Yours are really long and wide. I know in planes long, skinny wings are better for distance flights, but wider wings have less drag."

"Huh. Good thinking." The gang boss sounded almost impressed. "Yeah, in birds it's something similar. Big rectangular wings are good for long, slow soaring. They've got a lot of surface area so it's easier to take off than if they were skinny. So, what do you see with yours?"

Danny nodded and considered his own wings. Now that he was looking at them, it was obvious they weren't proportioned the same. Danny’s wings were shorter, more rounded than rectangular. He couldn’t think of any planes with round wings like that.

"So mine are, what, less good at soaring?"

"That's one thing," Hood said. "But they're more maneuverable. Think of it like being an acrobat when I'm a marathon runner."

That was neat, Danny had to admit. He liked the idea of doing cool aerial tricks. That would at least make this crappy wing situation a little more bearable. Except...

"I need to get into the air first."

"We're getting to that." Red Hood opened his other wing. "Alright, I'm gonna show you how I take off in slow motion and explain what I'm doing."

Danny wasn't sure how that would work, but he nodded and watched.

"First, I lean over a bit, but not enough to make me unbalanced." Hood did so, and bent his knees a bit. "Then raise up your wings as straight up as you can." Danny watched Hood stretch his wings up, up, taller than any person could stand. "When you do your down-stroke, it's not directly down. Imagine it more like you're trying to make your wings into scoops and push the air down and away." Slowly, carefully, Hood's wings lowered. Like he said, they went more forward than down. The wingtips stretched out in front of Hood, feathers fanned out as wide as they could.

"Okay," Danny said. "I think I can do that."

Danny crouched a bit, then raised his wings straight up above him. It was kind of like stretching an arm, but it moved differently. Then Danny flapped his wings like Red Hood had demonstrated. Instantly he could feel the difference. Air caught under his wings, forcing the rest of his body up. His feet left the ground. It felt amazing. Danny almost cheered, but he realized the one flap wouldn't keep him up for long. Danny's white feathers came up for another stroke.

Instantly he hit resistance. It felt almost like his wing slipped under the air pocket it had been above before. Danny swore as his feet hit the ground and he stumbled to his knees.

"You got some air that time," Red Hood commented helpfully. "Do you know what went wrong?"

"If I knew I wouldn't have done it," Danny snapped. He was suddenly struck by how weird this situation was. A couple months ago Danny's biggest concern was keeping away from Dash when he was near a locker. Now he was getting flying lessons from the Red Hood, of all people. The guy was a crazy gangster who'd decapitated people. He'd killed the Joker. Half of Gotham talked about him like he was a monster.

But then again, Danny thought, maybe that wasn't the whole story. Ivy was supposed to be a monster, too, and she'd just treated him like a normal adult would. Danny's parents had thought...

He shuddered, forcing his thoughts back to the present. Hood was looking at him silently with his head tilted slightly to the side.

"You alright there, fledgling?"

"Would you stop calling me that?" Danny folded his arms and tried to think about how it had felt when he tried to fly. "When I tried to bring my wings up, it felt like I hit a bunch of resistance, and then I slipped."

"You kept your wings wide open when you brought them up for another flap," Hood explained. "You gotta fold the primaries in a little bit, or you'll be fighting against the air above your wing." He stretched out one wing and demonstrated by halfway folding his wing, just the first part with the largest feathers.

Danny groaned. "How do birds make this look so easy?"

Red Hood chuckled. The sound was really ominous with his helmet's weird voice filter. "The birds that don't fly get eaten." For a moment Hood gestured like he was going to say something else, but then he stilled. "Shit."

"Uh. Should I run?"

The Red Hood shook his head. "Sorry, pollito, there's something I gotta go take care of. If you want, I can meet back here in a couple nights for another lesson."

"Why?" The word was out of his mouth before Danny could think. "I don't get why you're so worried about helping me. I'm not even from here."

Instead of making another stupid joke, Red Hood stepped towards him. Danny took half a step back on instinct, and Red Hood stopped. "Look, kid. Danny. I don't care where you're from. The minute you started sleeping on my streets, you became someone I'm here to protect, alright?"

Danny wanted to roll his eyes and make some flippant comment about capes, but he couldn't. There was something real in those words. Some kind of gut feeling told him that Red Hood was being absolutely honest. He didn't know what to do with that.

"Yeah. Okay."

Hood watched him squirm for another moment before he went and picked his jacket off the overgrown picnic table. It took him a minute to slide it back on and do up the buttons on the back. Danny was still kind of jealous of how easy it looked.

"Keep practicing, pollito. I'll be back in two days." He leapt into the air and took one huge wingbeat to clear the trees. Showoff.

Danny watched him go, trying to take note of how Red Hood moved his wings in the air so he could practice it. Then his brain caught up to something.

"What the hell is a pollito?"

#dpxdc #my writing #t's writing #EGYW

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Prologue - The Shelduck's Game

— — — — — — —

All was still.

It had been still in that particular neck of the Gravity Falls woods for almost a full year.

The residents of the nearby town knew better than to venture too close, and their sentiments were shared by the beings—animal and supernatural alike—who had formerly occupied that part of the forest. Even the Manotaurs had long since abandoned their nearby man cave—and if even the self-proclaimed representations of manliness themselves wouldn’t dare approach the area, then the rest of the population was in no hurry to do the same.

Such stillness made every step from a pair of unknown feet more prominent, twigs and foliage snapping beneath them as their hooded owner moved swiftly through the underbrush. And despite the darkness of the night sky above—with only a few stray moonbeams through the leaves of the canopy layer acting as a light source—their pace was quick and undisturbed as they ventured deeper into the woods, only broken once they finally arrived at their destination.

A destination in the form of a triangle-shaped statue, half-embedded in the soft earth.

The forest had clearly made several attempts to claim it. Twisting vines had curled themselves around the limbs like the ribbons on a present, and the patches of stone that were usually exposed to the sun's rays during the day were now illuminated with a soft glow from the moon’s gentle gaze.

But despite nature’s best efforts, it still remained.

Remained with an open hand on a permanently-outstretched arm. 

Waiting for the day someone finally came along to make a deal.

The mysterious figure stood still for a few minutes, their gaze locked on the singular eye that made up most of the triangle’s face. And after another minute of staring, their footsteps—those still-shattering footsteps—began again, this time to close the gap between them and the statue.

And once that gap was properly closed, the figure’s own arm extended towards the statue—

—and an orange, feathered hand clasped around its stone one.

There was a faint spark in the triangle’s single eye—the first sign of life it had shown in months—before the figure vanished in a flash of light, that little bit of life fading back to nothing with their departure.

And much like the statue itself, all fell still again.

— — — — — — —

“You’re a real wise guy, but you made one fatal mistake! You messed with my family!”

“YOU’RE making a mistake! I’ll give you anything: money, fame, riches, infinite power, your own galaxy! PLEASE! NO! What’s HAPPENING to me?!”

“!NRUTER YAM I TAHT REWOP TNEICNA EHT EKOVNI I !NRUB OT EMOC SAH EMIT YM, L-T-O-L-O-X-A-”

“STAN-LEEEEEEY—”

The first thing Bill was able to process was the fact that he was still screaming.

The second was that he was able to scream at all.

Despite the lack of a mouth (or lungs, if some nerd wanted to get annoyingly technical with the anatomy of a triangle), Bill’s chest rose and fell at a hyperventilating pace, his singular pupil rapidly darting back and forth as he took in his surroundings.

He was lying flat on his back with his face pointed upwards, although a closer examination revealed that any attempt to label directions would be entirely pointless. 

Kinda hard to have an ‘up’ or ‘down’ when all that surrounded you was an endless, white void.

He rose up from what could be considered the ground, and hovered in place for a moment. It was the mindscape, that much he could deduce at a glance alone. And a grateful lack of the Mystery Shack living room—or a furious, elderly man about to shatter him like glass—implied it was highly unlikely that he was still inside the mind (or whatever was left of the mind) of Stanley Pines.

But if not his mindscape, then where—

“Oh, hey, you’re here!”

The sound of an unknown voice behind him spun Bill around in midair, with far less dignity than he would’ve preferred. “Hey pal, who d’you—think…”

Any potential anger that might’ve been building vanished in an instant as Bill got a good look at the peculiar being before him. 

First obvious thing of note was that they were clearly not human. Rather, they looked to be some sort of anthropomorphic duck or duck-like creature—similar to the ones from the dimensions with that annoying rat who liked to get a bit too pushy with how he ran things. Quantum Destabilizer to his head regarding the specific breed of duck, however—they were probably some kinda shelduck? He was pretty sure those had orange feathers.

They were also about five-feet tall by mortal measurements, and the garish color of their feathers was only outshined by their eccentric clothing choices. 

The first thing to draw Bill’s eye was their jacket; an extremely tacky windbreaker composed of a multitude of colors in light pastel shades. Paired alongside with a radically-patterned shirt, sporty red shades, and a necklace with a charm in the shape of an orange, they looked to be the poster child of the word ‘hideously tacky’. 

Either that, or ‘retro’. 

…Eh, he’d settle for ‘hideously retro.’ 

“Glad to see you’re up and about,” the duck continued as they took a few steps closer to him. “Honestly, I had no idea if shaking your hand was actually going to work, after everything that happened to you. I mean, getting set on fire? Shattered into pieces? Erased from existence?!”

They stopped and tapped their bill thoughtfully. “Plus there’s the fact that your actual resting place was somewhere completely different—” Their hand moved to the side of their mouth with a cheeky grin. “—and whew, buddy, as much as I wouldn’t mind waiting around for a man like ~that~ to get back to town, I have a million things I need to do today and don’t need to make it a million-and-one!”

Smiling wider, they reached up to nudge at him with their elbow. “Eh, eh, know what I mean?” they asked with a wink, before letting their arm fall again. “Nah, I guess you wouldn’t. The point is, it worked! Because here you are, back and better than ever!”

Before Bill could get even a word in, they raised a finger. “Okay, so I know you probably have a looooot of questions to ask,” they said, and began to tick off the remaining fingers on their hand. “Who am I? How I do know so much about you? Why did I bring you here in the first place?” 

The ticked off fingers morphed into a roll of the wrist. “Yadda, yadda, yadda, point is, you probably have a ton of questions that need answers. Well, lucky for you, that’s exactly what I’m here to do!”

A pause. “Well, not here here, we’ll have to wait until we’re actually in my office before I explain the situation more clearly,” they clarified. “Accidentally left all my flashcards and presentation material in there, and if I try to cover all the basics without ‘em, I know I’m going to forget something important. And that'd just be really inconvenient for everyone involved!”

Their smile widened. “But once we’re there, I promise I’ll tell you everything you need to know!”

They folded their hands together and stared at him, likely an indication that they were finished talking. And if that wasn’t enough, they quickly clarified with: “Sorry, I know that was probably a lot to take in, but I’m done for now if you have anything you wanna add.”

It took a lot to surprise Bill Cipher.

With his vast collection of knowledge, near-perfect omniscience, and countless other abilities that could bring whole dimensions to their knees, it was a rarity for him to come across anyone or anything that might actually catch him off guard.

All that aside—

—heh?

Credit where it was due, Birdbrain wasn’t wrong about the amount of questions currently bubbling around in his brain. Accuracy of their questions was also pretty spot on, although it didn’t take a genius to guess the answer of that last one.

There was only one reason anyone ever sought him out, and it wasn’t to trade fashion tips (although it was hardly necessary in this case; the guy looked like a sentient arcade carpet straight outta the Dimension That’s Perpetually Stuck In A Heavily Romanticized Version of the Mid-Eighties-Slash-Early-Nineties).

They were looking to make a deal.

If Bill had a mouth, he’d be smirking at the thought. Boy, back less than two minutes and he already had some chump lining up to make a deal with him, huh?

Had he suddenly transformed into a stupid human child leaving a medical checkup, one being rewarded for the state of their unimpressive and fragile immune system with a piece of cheap candy?

Because it sounded an awful lot like he was being handed a free sucker.

And while normally he’d snatch up a chance like that without a second thought—

"You made one fatal mistake..."

He tensed as Stan’s words forced themselves back to the front of his mind, along with the vivid memory that accompanied them. The sinking feeling of realization as he came face to face with the wrong twin. The panic blossoming in tandem with the flames engulfing Stan's mind, ones eager to swallow both of them in their destruction.

The agonizing pain as his entire being violently shifted between forms in a desperate attempt to escape, before a single punch from Stanley’s fist shattered him like glass—

“You’re a lot quieter than I was lead to believe.”

And suddenly the duck was uncomfortably close to his floating form, a studious expression on their face as they stared him up and down. “Did I do something wrong?” they asked. “Pretty sure I just needed to shake your hand to make a deal, right? Unless someone happened to change the rules while I wasn’t looking.” 

With a huff, they placed their hands on their hips and stared off in one direction of the white void. “I will say that if they did, it was a real jerk move!” they called out in a mildly-scolding tone. “I spent months doing as much research on you I could, and if I did all that prep work only for something new to come out just as we start talking, then I’m gonna be pretty annoyed!”

While the duck rambled on, Bill floated backwards with an indignant glare. Only time he was fine with people getting that close to him was when he was the one invading their personal space.

Although they raised a good point; he was being far too quiet. 

Even the deadest silence spoke volumes and the last thing he needed was for them to potentially backtrack on the idea of making a deal at all.  Unpacking everything else could come later, he couldn’t afford to pass up a chance to make a deal with some obviously-willing sucker.

In the meantime, he had to throw them at least one bone. Or, them being a duck and all, at least one breadcrumb. 

Ha. Hilarious.

Another shift of his pupil as he looked them up and down. Well, if they really wanted him to add to the conversation, there was nowhere better to start than with the obvious.

“Sorry, Birdbrain, guess I kinda short-circuited just from staring at the war crime in fifty-seven dimensions you call an outfit,” he said aloud, raising a hand to shield his eye. “Yeesh! Forget an eyesore, I’m getting a full-body ache just by looking at you!”

Yeah, that’d work.

In all honesty, their fashion sense was actually right up Bill’s alley. Bright, tacky colors that made it difficult to stare at the person wearing them for too long? Hideous, brilliant, absolutely something he could see himself wearing if the situation called for it.

But it wasn’t like they needed to know that, and hey; they called it low-hanging fruit for a reason.

Surprisingly enough, the duck actually smiled with amusement at his little quip. “Oh, well, the shirt was a gift from a friend,” they explained, and gently gripped the edge of their windbreaker. “But I got the jacket in the Dimension That’s Perpetually Stuck In A Heavily Romanticized Version of the Mid-Eighties-Slash-Early-Nineties. It’s my favorite place to shop for clothes~!”

It was almost scary how well he could read people sometimes. “Yeah, no kidding,” he said with a cackle. “Didja wake me up so I could point you in the direction of somewhere to buy clothes from this decade?”

“No, no, my fashion sense is a choice,” they said, holding up a finger. “But that’s not what we’re here to discuss! As I said before, I’ll be able to explain everything once we’re in my office. So we—oh, wait, hold on a sec.”

The duck clapped their hands together, and as they did (and as Bill watched), something began to rise up from the ‘ground’. It continued to expand upwards—the shape slowly resembling that of an upside-down horseshoe—and before long, a tall, curved archway towered above them. 

The archway’s appearance was fairly unordinary, with the only exception being a small sign at the very top center, labeled with nothing but a clear picture of an orange (or was it a tangerine? Eh, details; a fruit was a fruit). And at a glance, nothing lay beyond the other side aside from the continuation of the endless void. 

At least nothing that could be seen by the naked eye.

…Which meant there was a ninety-percent chance that there was plenty to see with an experienced eye.

“There we go,” the duck said. “This will lead us to the main part of my mind, aka my office. There, we can go over all the terms and conditions of the deal I wanna make with you!”

They flashed him a bright grin. “Like I said, forgot all my flashcards and stuff in there, and I’d rather not go over everything without them.”

Without waiting for a response from him, they hurried forward through the archway. As Bill had initially suspected, they seemed to vanish into thin air as they passed beneath it; a confirmation that the archway was really some kind of door to the deeper parts of their mind.

Rather than immediately follow after them, Bill instead turned his attention back to the endless void while he gathered his thoughts.

Okay, a quick assessment of his current situation; Punched in face. Exploded. Died. Woke up to a badly-dressed duck—one who clearly had more than a couple of screws loose in a way that teetered the line between hilarious and annoying —looking to make a deal.

The latter was hardly the weirdest thing to ever happen to him. Probably didn’t crack the top hundred, or even the top thousand. A talking duck in tacky clothing? Just another Sñeaturday night for him.

The former, however—

One fatal mistake.

His eye flashed red with abhorrence as Stan’s words once again hammered against the inside of his skull. In his desperation to shatter the barrier around the town, to put a stop to anything that would keep him from being finally, truly free—

—he’d foolishly miscounted the number of fingers on a hand.

His own hands balled into fists as the implications behind Stan’s oh-so-clever little plan finally started to take hold. No—not just Stan’s plan. Even if the old man hadn’t outright admitted to disguising himself as Ford, it didn’t take a genius to guess that he hadn’t pulled the stunt by himself. It took two to tango, and it also took two twins to swap places with each other.

And if one twin had been in charge of lulling him into their trap, that left the other free to pull the trigger on the gun.

One fatal mistake. One fatal mistake—

Ford had never planned on giving him the equation at all! He’d been deceived, tricked, played for a fool—

—and the worst part is that it had worked.

After all the knowledge he had provided to Ford over the years, after everything he had promised him in their success, he had thrown it all the way for the sake of his…his stupid family!

What a fool he was, and what a fool Bill had been for ever considering him a valuable and trustworthy ally in his plans.

And thanks to Ford’s betrayal, it was almost certain that things had settled back to normal in the mortal realm, with every trace of the Nightmare Realm being forcibly pulled back into the decaying dimension they called home. 

Which meant Bill certainly wouldn’t be getting a hero’s welcome once he returned. He’d promised his buddies a party that stretched on until the end of time, not some half-baked event that only last a few, measly human days. 

Even if everything was the fault of that ungrateful jerk and his stupid family, Bill would still be the one dunked headfirst into a bowl of multidimensional salsa the second he stepped foot back into the realm.

Thanks to Ford and his stupid family, he had no more backup attempts, no more portals, no Henchmaniacs, no more suckers he could puppet around or trick into doing his dirty work—

Thanks to Ford, he had nothing.

“By the way, I should probably let you know—”

“ACK!”

Bill was once again flung backwards out of sheer surprise as the duck’s head poked back out of the portal. A motion that earned an apologetic laugh from them, their hand also appearing out of the archway as they pressed it to their bill. “Sorry! Sorry, I forgot to tell you something important!” 

Bill narrowed his eye at them. “You know, you’ve got a real knack for sneaking up on people, Birdbrain,” he said, muffling his annoyance with a laugh. “Can’t pretend I’m not impressed, though. If you were some slithering, poisonous snake in the grass and I a pathetic, unsuspecting human full of vulnerable red blood cells and no immunity to venom, I’d probably be dead by now!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” the duck said proudly. “But what I wanted to tell you was that even if you aren’t interested in making a deal, you’ll need to come in and let me know.”

Both hands were now outside the archway, raised in a shrug. “You know, just so I can pop you back, no harm, no foul?”

Their arms fell along with their expression as they peered closer at him. “Hey, is everything okay?” they asked. “I realize I’m probably moving a little too fast, especially after what happened in the last mind you were in. So I can understand any hesitance on your part…”

They cast him a look of sympathy, hands clasped together as they stepped all the way back out into the white void. “And if you need some time to think it over, I’ll understand. I know I said earlier I had other things I needed to be doing today, but that was all talk! We can take as long as you need to decide.”

Bill’s eyebrow narrowed at their concern. Hey, just because they were right about his hesitance didn’t mean he had to actually admit to that being the case. Especially not now that they’d caught onto that hesitation twice.

Once was easy to pass off as their mind playing tricks on them. Twice was a bit more difficult, though not impossible. Especially not when you were a master at twisting a conversation to your favor.

Another joke at their expense would probably do the trick. Clothing was out, he’d already poked fun at their hideous style and stretching a bit too thin always came with the risk of the tormented building an immunity through overexposure. Not that Birdbrain had exactly been bothered by—

Hmm. 

That could work.

With a chuckle, he raised a hand in the air to summon his cane. “Hehe, I don’t know what all that research told you, Birdbrain, but if you’re really standing there and trying to imply that I might be nervous about making a deal—” 

After giving it a little twirl, he jabbed the end of the cane against their arm. Not so hard that it would hurt, but with just enough force to make them wonder if harm had been the intent. “—you must not know me as well as you think you do~!”

He paused, and reached up to tap one of his sides thoughtfully. “Speakin’ of knowing people, though, I know you’re all eager to get to your big fancy-schmancy brain office to tell me what’s what,” he said. “But normally when I go dumpster-diving into someone’s mind, I at least like to catch their name first.”

He delivered another poke to their arm with his cane and batted his eyelashes at them. “Unless Birdbrain is your actual name and I’m just the Multiverse’s best guesser~?" he asked. "…I mean, I’ll probably still call you Birdbrain after I get a name, but it’s always nice to have options, y’know?”

There, a nice excuse that also doubled as a half-truth; not once in the entire conversation had Birdbrain actually given him a name.

And while he and the concept of truthfulness weren’t exactly on speaking terms, half-truths were the redheaded stepchildren he was happy to associate with whenever their presence was needed.

If the duck had actually been bothered by either jab from his cane, or if they hadn’t been fooled by his attempt to shift the conversation, they showed no indication of such in their expression. 

If anything, their smile only widened further at his request. “Oh, that’s actually a good point!” they agreed, and pressed a hand to their forehead. “Got so caught up in the details that I almost forgot to introduce myself! And knowing me, I would’ve gone through my whole presentation and not even thought about it!”

They paused for a moment to think. “Plus my research indicates that you aren’t a member of the fae so I see no risk in getting my name stolen if I give it to you,” they pointed out, with a glare to their side. “Unless that was something else that someone forgot to tell me ahead of time?”

Bill’s eye shifted thoughtfully towards the same direction, as if he expected to see someone else with them in the mindscape. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing more than the white void he had already grown used to seeing around them.

Once again, that wasn’t an indication that there was nothing to see, but that was something to worry about later. “Tempting, but I’ll set the idea aside for a rainy day.” He gave them a wink, or as best of a wink as one could give with one eye. “Or maybe for when I just get bored and feel like experimenting with something new~! Haven’t done that in a while, might be fun!”

The duck tapped their chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, let’s see. Which name I prefer depends on the person, but I think…”

They held up a finger, eyes bright with inspiration. “Yeah, I think you can call me Tangy!”

“Tangy, huh?”

Bill’s gaze shifted knowingly between their feathers, necklace, and finally moved back to the sign on the archway. Guess he’d thought that low-hanging fruit joke way too soon.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and tease if you want,” Tangy said amusedly. “I never claimed to be subtle when it comes to the way I present myself.”

They held up a hand and wiggled their fingers at him. “Plus my feathers already smelled like tangerines before I took on the name, so it was even more perfect~!”

After giving their hand a sniff, they let their arm fall back to their side. “Well, I’ve given you my name. Guess all that’s left is for us to get this show on the road!” they said, tilting their head at him. “Unless you really do need more time to think it over? I promise I’m not here to judge if you do!”

Boy, they weren’t letting up on that, were they? “Sounds to me like you need more time to think it over than I do,” he pointed out, and cutely pressed a hand to his cheek. “What, are you scared to make a deal with wittle ol’ Bill~?”

“Not particularly,” Tangy assured him with a laugh. “Although I would’ve appreciated the extra time to gather my presentation materials together.”

They held up a finger. “But, if you’re so sure that you’re ready, then let’s go!”

They ducked back through the archway, once again leaving Bill with nothing but his own thoughts. He cast another look towards the void again, unsurprised by the fact that there was still nothing (or no one) to see.

He stared for a moment more, before a devilish laugh began to bubble inside him. Boy, that old geezer must’ve punched him harder than he’d realized if he’d actually been shaken enough to worry, even for a brief moment. What was he thinking, getting so worked up about his situation when some tacky bird was practically throwing themselves at him for a deal? A deal that would probably be child’s play for him to complete, leaving him with a whole favor on their end. 

Plus, what was an anthropomorphic duck in tacky clothing but a human with feathers, and tacky clothing? If he played his cards right, he could easily end up with a sparkling new vessel to parade around in while he cleaned his wounds and regained his footing.

Heck, if he really played his cards right, there was always a chance for him to try his hand at another Weirdmageddon. One that would actually succeed this time around.

His features twisted into a wicked, metaphorical grin. And maybe with the right persuasion, he could convince Birdbrain to include a lovely reunion with Stanford and the rest of the Pines family in their deal.

Maybe even a reunion that involved peeling each of them apart like human bananas. Layer by layer, skin from muscle from vein from bones. Until they were all nothing but writhing blobs of flesh, unable to do anything but scream in endless, agonizing pain. What's wrong, Fordsy, you can't erase someone out of existence because your arm's a pile of fleshy goop? Too bad!

A delightful fantasy to imagine, but nothing more than that for the time being. Oh well, something to pocket for later.

With a satisfied expression, he adjusted his bowtie and hovered forward through the archway—

—only to be greeted hard and fast by the unforgiving ground he splattered against on the other side.

There was a gasp nearby, followed by the sound of webbed feet slapping against a tiled floor. “Oops! Probably should’ve warned you about that!”

With a groan, Bill lifted the front of his body up from the floor and cast a nasty look to Tangy. Their hand was extended forward for him to take, and their beak curled into an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” they said with a chuckle. “Completely forgot to mention the faint shift in your natural abilities as you step into this part of my mind. It’s a little jarring, but otherwise harmless and the effects should wear off pretty quickly.”

Their offered hand was ignored as Bill floated fully back up into the air. “That’s a real cute trick, Birdbrain,” he said, and dusted off his front. “Although a bit rude on your guest’s behalf, don’t you think?”

He moved close to their face, features once again stretched into the mouthless-equivalent of a smile. “I mean, I don’t call you over to my place and make you trip on your way through the front door, do I?”

Despite the sudden intrusion of their personal space, Tangy’s expression didn’t change. “No, I’d imagine you’d do something much worse,” they pointed out. “Like make the door lead to the Unnaturally-Moist Dimension, or something equally as cursed.”

Bill folded his arms with a thoughtful look. “Unnaturally-Moist Dimension, huh? Creative, I’ll give you that one.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Tangy said with a laugh. “Browsing your records for months straight gave me a pretty good feel of the kind of guy you are. I swear, sometimes I even see triangles when I close my eyes!”

To emphasize their point, they closed their eyes for a few seconds and pointed a finger to their temple. “Yep! They’re there!”

They opened their eyes again. “Anyway, did we want to get started on the deal, then?”

“Gotta be honest, Birdbrain, I can’t exactly accept or deny a deal if I don’t even know what the terms and conditions are,” Bill pointed out. “So how’s about we discuss all that first?”

Tangy smiled wide at his suggestion. “A very fair point! I can’t expect you to accept my deal if you don’t even know what I want!” they said, and spun on their heels to face the other direction. “Tell you what, you go ahead and make yourself at home at my desk area while I get your file, and then we can start our discussion. I knew I forgot something from upstairs, I swear, I’m just a mess today!”

As they hurried away from him with a visible spring in their step, Bill took the opportunity to examine his new, new surroundings. 

The endless white void had been replaced with some sort of observatory combined with a records office. The room was wide and cylindrical with tan walls on all sides, and there were two distinct levels between the floor and the cornice connected to the domed roof above their heads.

The lower level was open and empty, save for a simple workspace at the far left side of the room comprised of a desk, wastebasket and office chair. The area were a mess compared to the rest of the room—the surface was littered with papers and folders, a mug of some unknown liquid, and a closed laptop adorned in bright and cutesy stickers, while the wastebasket on the floor was overflowing with several pieces of crumpled paper.

The upper layer—on the other hand—was a full observation deck. One that circled around the room’s entirety, with both halves coming together at a spiral staircase on the opposite end of the room, and one that Tangy had bounded towards after putting a pause on their conversation. The walls along the platform were lined with tall filing cabinets that stretched from the ground to the diameter line of the domed ceiling.

And rather than any sort of sky beyond the glass, the view looked to be shimmering sea water. As if the entire ‘office’ was situated at the bottom of the ocean, with only a few schools of colorful fish adding some contrast to the endless blue.

“Let me know if you have any requests for the mood lighting,” Tangy called from the spiral staircase. “Normally I keep it neutral in case the boss wants to pay me an unscheduled visit, but if you want, I can just—”

They clapped their hands together, and the ocean view above immediately shifted to a bright, retro scene of shifting shapes and colors, one that could rival their outfit in terms of tackiness. “Or if you want something a little more personal, I can change it to—”

Another clap, and the retro shapes melted into a mess of raging hellfire and bloody hail that thundered hard against the glass. “Again, taking any and all requests, so just let me know if you got ‘em!”

Bill had remained silent as Tangy prattled on—eye fixed on the ever-changing scenery outside the dome—before his pupil shifted down to the workspace area. He hovered towards it, while the sound of filing cabinet drawers being opened and closed from the second level echoed throughout the room. “Just give me a moment, I know it’s around here somewh—a-HA!”

There was a loud BANG of a drawer being slammed shut, before a sudden blur of orange came barreling down from the upper level towards the ground below. At first, Bill expected-slashed-hoped that Tangy would splatter against the floor at Mach speed, if for no other reason than the visual comedy aspect.

A duck splattering against the floor? Why, that was straight out of a vintage cartoon, one where talking animals were allowed to inflict horrific acts of violence on each other. Such a fun period of time in animation history, one of his personal favorites if he really had to pick.

Unfortunately for him (and luckily for Tangy), their body came to an instant stop in midair, less than half an inch from the floor. With an exhale of relief, they stretched a webbed foot down to give the tiles below a gentle tap, and the rest of their body finished the fall at a more manageable speed.

An expected outcome, given the mindscape setting. But Bill couldn’t help but be disappointed at the lack of a splattered duck on the floor.

“Sorry for making you wait,” Tangy said, giving the file in their hand a light shake. “This should’ve been under ‘C’ for ‘Cipher’, I have no idea how it ended up in the T section! Guess someone must’ve slipped it into the wrong drawer or something.”

They let out a small chuckle as they seated themselves in the chair behind the desk. “Well, no matter. Let’s go ahead and get this started—”

They paused, and looked to him again. “Oh, wait, you’d probably want a proper seat for this, wouldn’t you?”

With a gesture of their hand, a empty chair appeared on the other side of the desk for Bill. “Once again; just let me know if you’d prefer anything different,” they said. “Throne, bean bag chair—”

They made little squirming motions with their fingers. “—recliner stuffed with bugs so you always feel something wiggling whenever you sit down?”

This got a laugh out of Bill as he sank into the offered chair. “Once again, very creative,” he said, folding his hands atop his cane. “You really know how to treat a shape in this place, huh?”

“Well, I do like my clients to be as comfortable as possible,” Tangy explained. “It makes them so much more agreeable when it comes to dealmaking.”

Bill raised his eyebrow. Clients with an S, huh? Interesting, and worth questioning. “Oh, so I’m not the first interdimensional, all-powerful being you’ve brought here?” He pressed his hand to his forehead with a dramatic flair. “Aww, well, now my feelings are hurt, Birdbrain. And here I thought I was special~!”

“Don’t worry, you are!” Tangy assured him, with a tilt of their head. “You’re the first interdimensional, all-powerful being I’ve brought here. The other interdimensional beings I’ve brought here were far less powerful than you are.”

They clapped their hands together. “Which is why I’m especially excited to have you visiting me today! I’ve never had the chance to make a deal with someone like you before!”

Wow, they were laying it on pretty thick, weren’t they? To the point that there was a decent chance they were just trying to butter him up.

Still, Bill wasn’t one to turn down a free compliment. “Sheesh, kid, you’re gonna make me blush,” he said with feigned modesty. “I mean, by all means, keep up the flattery. But normally I only get this red if someone catches me in the process of peeling off my exoskeleton.” 

He waggled a finger in their direction. “Heyyy, his little deal of yours wouldn’t happen to involve you trying to get me outta my skin, would it~?” he asked with a wink, then let out a small chuckle. “...That was a wink, by the way. In case you couldn’t tell.”

“Don’t worry, I understood the intent,” Tangy assured him. “Although to answer your question honestly: No, that is not what my deal entails. Besides, I’m much older than you are.”

Oh, they were, were they? Another interesting tidbit to tuck away in the old brain vault for later. “Fair enough, I wouldn’t be interested anyway,” Bill said, leaning back in his chair. “So what kind of deal are you looking to make, Birdbrain? Wanna be rich? All-powerful?”

A beat. “…Taller?”

Hey, just because they were keen on dishing out the compliments didn’t mean he had to reciprocate.

“As tempting as that last one is, I’ll pass this time,” Tangy said. “But to be honest, I didn’t just bring you here so you could make a deal with me. I mean, I guess I technically did, but—”

They moved a hand to Bill’s file on the desk and flipped it open. “Point is, this deal is less about what I want, and mostly about what you want.”

Well, if that didn’t shoot Bill’s eyebrow so far up his face that it was a miracle it didn’t fly away of its own accord. So they were just jumping straight to that point on their own without him having to guide them there himself, huh?

It wasn’t enough to lower Bill’s guard completely, but he couldn’t help but give them an intrigued look. “Oh? And what is it that I want exactly?”

Tangy turned their gaze to the file. “Well, according to this; lots of things!” they said, tracing their finger beneath the words on one page. “A physical form that will allow you to escape your dimension and rule the mortal realm with an iron—and three-dimensional—fist. Some form of revenge on the people who stopped you from doing that the last time you tried—”

They let their eyes travel across the page for a moment, before confusion painted their features. “—the world’s silliest silly straw?”

Bill let out a hearty laugh. “That’s right, I’d almost forgotten about that one! One of the few things I gotta give humans credit for; they sure can silly a straw!”

He folded his arms. “But in all seriousness, it’s pretty low on the list of things I’d make a deal over,” he said. “You’re on the right track with those first two options, though. So if we really wanna get this show on the road—”

“Ah, ah, not so fast!” 

Tangy held up a finger. “I might know what you want, but you haven’t even heard my terms of the deal yet!”

Despite his best efforts, Bill's nonexistent smile fell in an instant as he raised his eyebrow at them. “Pretty sure you just said this whole deal was about what I wanted?”

“I said it was mostly about what you wanted,” Tangy reminded him. “But there are a few things I’d like to gain out of our exchange for myself.”

They cradled their chin in their hands. “I mean, it wouldn’t exactly be a deal if only one side got what they wanted, would it?” they asked. “It’d be more like—I don’t know—me just giving you a gift without expecting anything in return?”

A shrug. “A nice gesture, but not something that requires all this extra effort,” they pointed out. “In that case, I could’ve simply left a present next to your statue and been done with it!”

Bill rolled his eye. An annoying point, but a fair one. Even if he would’ve absolutely preferred a free offering without being expected to give anything in return. “Well, what do you want out of the deal, then?”

Tangy’s beak widened into an excited smile and clapped their hands twice. Immediately the scenery around them changed; the lights in the room were snuffed out in an instant and the grotesque, hellish scenery beyond the glass above transformed into a calm, starry night.

Another series of claps, and a large projection screen appear behind them in midair, followed shortly by a film projector at the other end of the room. With a pleased expression, Tangy rolled their chair around the desk and moved towards the empty space beside Bill. “I have a short promotional film prepared,” they explained. “After the dozenth-or-so client, it gets exhausting repeating myself over and over.”

They leaned closer to him and gave him a knowing wink. “Plus this way I can offer my guests refreshments while they watch! I heard someone was a fan of Time-Punch? I might have a few bottles on hand, if you’re interested?”

Bill's eye had once again been fixed on the changing scenery above their heads, but his expression fell into something more pleased at the mention of Time Punch. “Well, now, if you’re going to go and offer me something like that, then how can a guy say no?” he asked, tucking one hand behind his head while making a gesture with the other to proceed.

There was a snap of Tangy’s fingers and a small, floating martini glass appeared in the air near Bill, one immediately followed by a bottle of sparkling liquid. “I think a glass of Late 2020 would be to your liking,” they said. “It’s supposed to be a very weird year.”

Bill’s eye lit up. “Ooh, that’s the year the plague makes a comeback, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is,” Tangy said, while the bottle poured its contents into Bill’s glass. “I opted for the back half of the year, after things really began to kick into overdrive.”

Once the glass was full, Bill took it in his hand and gave the contents an expert swirl, before raising it to his eye for a sip. “Oh yeah, that’s the kind of savoriness you only get from media fatigue, toilet paper hoarding, and…”

There was a pause, followed by a smacking sound as he determined the taste. “Huh, almost forgot about the murder hornets.”

“Yeah, kind of a wild thing to throw out there while everything else was going on,” Tangy agreed.

While Bill took another sip, Tangy gestured to the projector and the screen before them lit up with the image of a vintage countdown timer. Once it ticked down to zero, the screen fell dark again for a moment before the first scene appeared.

A random, humanoid man raced into view from the right side of the screen. His appearance was disheveled and worn—as if he’d been previously fighting some difficult battle—and his features twisted with defeat and fury.

He slowed his run to a gradual stop, ducking behind a wall and sinking down to the ground in an exhausted, sitting position. As he pressed a hand to his head, a booming voice (one that echoed throughout the domed room around them) began to speak offscreen. “Greetings! Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this gentleman right here?”

The camera zoomed in on the man’s face, as he glared at the person behind the camera with a look of pure malice. “Hey now, there’s no need to look at me like that, pal,” the voice continued cheerfully. “The state you’re in right now is all your doing! You ticked off the wrong people, maybe you burned all the bridges with your family and friends. You’re a loser—”

On the screen beside the man flashed the word ‘LOSER’ in a wacky font. “—a CHUMP—” Another word in wacky font appeared on the opposite side of him. “—an absolute SUCKER—”

Before the third word could appear above his head, the man waved the text away in a blur of colors. “Can we get to the point?” he asked with a scowl.

“You’ve hit rock bottom with no way to climb back out,” the voice continued. “Or so you think~!”

The camera panned out, and suddenly Tangy appeared onscreen with an excited flourish. “Lucky for you, there’s a way to get your life back on track!” they said eagerly. “Introducing—”

With a wave of their hands, the title of the short film appeared over the two of them in big, orange—(Bill side-eyed the actual Tangy at this, who merely shrugged. “Listen, I like what I like.”)—letters of the same font as before:

“The Shelduck’s Game.”

Bill’s eyebrow rose with curiosity. The first thing to catch his eye was the word ‘shelduck’ (so Birdbrain was a shelduck, huh? Called that one.), but what really piqued his interest was the specific use of the word ‘game’.

Though a deal of a different name, a game possessed enough unique characteristics to justify the use of a separate word. A game implied challenges, rules…

More enticingly, a game implied a prize to be won.

The Tangy on the screen continued to speak as the text faded: “That’s right; The Shelduck’s Game! A fun-filled game for beings of all types across the Multiverse, and a chance for you to pull yourself out of the doldrums and get your life back on track!”

The scene transitioned with a screen wipe to a simple, crudely-drawn animation of Tangy and the unnamed man. “The Shelduck’s Game is so simple and easy to play, a child could do it!” the overlaid voice from before continued. “Not that we get a lot of children playing this game, but they could if they really wanted to!”

The actual Tangy leaned closer to Bill. “Yeah, not a lot of kids end up hitting rock bottom in the way most of my clients do,” they explained in a whisper. “And on the off chance that they do, they’re usually pulled out of it by the power of friendship or whatever by the time I’m able to arrive on the scene.”

A shrug. “Still, I am here if they ever need my help.”

Bill rolled his eye and turned his attention back to the film. “How does this game work, you may be asking yourself?” the voice asked, while the animated stand-in of the man shrugged with cartoonish uncertainty. “Well, as we said before, it’s so simple that even a child could figure it out! And that’s because—”

The crudely drawn Tangy gestured widely, and the scene transitioned to the two of them playing a random board game. “—the Shelduck’s Game is always suited to fit the specific player’s needs and personality!”

The board game shifted to a chessboard. “Are you a fan of chess?” Then a checkerboard. “Or perhaps checkers is more your speed?” The board disappeared completely. “Or maybe you’re not a fan of board games at all! We’ve got plenty of other options!”

Another scene transition, and the man was now hiding behind a tree while Tangy could be seen searching for him in the background. “There are countless games to be played in the Shelduck’s Game,” the voice continued. “But in the end, all you have to do is win one in order to obtain—”

More text written in that wacky font appeared onscreen, covering it in its entirety as the voice read them out: “—The Grand Prize!”

Bill hid a laugh behind another sip of his drink. Once again, his guessing skills were impeccable.

“The Grand Prizes offered by the Shelduck’s Game are just as diverse as the games themselves,” the voice continued. “And just as catered specifically to the needs-slash-wants of the player!”

The scene changed to the man’s animated head surrounded by brightly wrapped presents, and one opened to reveal a pile of money.  “Looking for cash?” Another revealed an unlabeled award. “Fame?”

And the last present opened to reveal an elegantly-decorated crown. “Looking to climb back to the top after your nasty and undignified fall from grace?” 

A wipe of the scene revealed the man from before, his disheveled and beaten appearance now replaced with a triumphant pose as he stood tall before a pile of his hard-earned rewards. “All of this and more can be yours if you play and win The Shelduck’s Game!”

With a proud smile, the man gave a thumbs-up to the camera. “Thanks to the Shelduck’s Game, I’m finally back on top!”

“Look at this guy!” the voice continued. “Don’t you wanna be just like him? I’ll bet you do! So play the Shelduck’s Game today!”

The guy gave a thumbs up as the title flashed again: “The Shelduck’s Game! Outta luck? Talk to the duck!” A pause, before the voice spoke again in a much more casual tone: “We’re still working on the catchphrase, cut us some slack.”

A series of warnings in smaller text quickly scrolled up from the bottom of the screen, read along by the voice at a pace to match the speed:

“Warning; please do not play any of the more intense games in the Shelduck’s Game if you are prone to illness, vertigo, motion sickness, or are with offspring in any way, shape, or form. The Shelduck’s Game is not responsible for any death (temporary or otherwise), dismemberment, or injury that may occur during the events of the game. Rules and regulations for each game may vary, as will your satisfaction with the end results. The Shelduck’s Game is not associate with Globnar, Time Baby or any associated organizations.”

The screen faded to black, and Tangy once again clapped their hands together. Immediately, the screen and projector vanished and the room’s lighting was restored. “Still a work in progress,” they admitted, while they moved their chair back to the other side of the desk. “But I think it gets the point across!”

They tilted their head. “Unless you have any other questions you still need to ask before we continue?”

Oh, Bill’s mind was whirling with questions, his gaze fixed hard on his empty martini glass in an attempt to mask the glee building inside him.

Birdbrain was in charge of running some sort of multidimensional game and wanted him as their latest player, with the aforementioned prize to be won acting as a lull to draw him in. Play a game, win a prize. A deal older than time itself, and one that often sounded too good to be true.

And as someone who had plenty of experience in the field of dealmaking; whenever a deal sounded too good to be true, there was always a catch. And lucky for Bill, he was quite the expert in spotting the catches in a deal. A master at spotting a watery loophole in even the most empty and barren of word deserts.

First thing of note was the lack of any specific game for him to play. The video had provided examples, but they’d been exactly that; examples. The video had made it very clear that the games were catered specifically to the player’s needs and personality.

And although he had a feeling Tangy was going to discuss the specifics of the game next, there was still the issue of the prize itself. They had already brought up a list of a few things he desired, but nothing that was worth diving headfirst into an unknown game of chance.

…Well, nothing that was worth diving into an unknown game of chance without more information, at least. 

He had to keep them talking, at least long enough to get that information out of them and anything else they were willing to divulge. Something he was sure wouldn’t be difficult; with how happy Birdbrain seemed to keep chatting up a storm, it was a wonder that they hadn’t been born a parrot instead of a shelduck.

Man, the bird jokes were almost too easy.

“I know what you’re probably thinking,” Tangy said aloud, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re probably thinking ‘this sounds amazing, and way too good to be true.’, along with some kind of derogatory remark about my appearance.”

Smarter than they looked, apparently.

Bill gingerly traced a finger around the rim of his glass. “Let me just see if I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” he said aloud, while his gaze followed the movement. “If I play one of your silly games and win, I get the prize of my dreams? That’s the deal you wanna make with me?”

“As expected, you catch on quick,” Tangy said proudly. “Yep, games are how we do things over here in my neck of the woods. I’ve got enough power to grant people their fondest desires, but it only becomes a reality if they play and win.”

They folded their hands on the desk. “And lucky for you, Bill Cipher, you happen to be the one I’m extending that lucky offer to today!”

Bill reached his glass to his eye again, downing the last little bit of Time Punch. “Can’t lie to you, Birdbrain, that does sound like a pretty sweet deal. But I’ve gotta reiterate my point from before; I can’t exactly agree to a deal if I don’t know the specifics behind it.”

He gestured widely with both arms and the few remaining drops in his empty glass splattered onto the papers on Tangy’s desk, a shimmery mess of color against their usual shade of white. “And not once in that little video of yours did you ever state the actual name of the game."

He held up the glass to his eye for a casual inspection. “I’m just saying, it ain’t smart to sign up for a game before you even know what you’re playing~!”

Tangy didn’t look the least bit perturbed by the mess, and instead gave a wave of their hand. The few spilled drops rose up from the paper into the air, leaving no trace that they had ever spilled, and a wave of their hand in another direction brought Bill’s empty glass up to join them before both dissolved in a quick burst of light.

The light faded as quickly as it had appeared, the cup and droplets now a floating mass of energy as Tangy shifted both hands to bring that energy into their embrace. They snapped with one hand, then the other—

—and then slapped both hands around the energy, flattening it into something that Bill could not see. After keeping their hands pressed together for a moment, they rereleased their grip and held the mass before them as it rematerialized into something entirely new.

At first, it appeared to be nothing more than a bunch of small, golden shapes, each about the size of an eraser. Once all the shapes had properly formed, however, they started to combine into a larger, singular shape—

“A triangle?”

How original.

The triangle—well, actually it was more of a square pyramid than anything else—fell into Tangy’s cupped hands, and a pair of thin, golden chainlinks began to materialize from the topmost point. They continued to form upwards for several inches, before slowly rounding off into a closed circle chain. “I had a few ideas for the game I’d offer you,” they said. “But I think at the end of the day, a scavenger hunt is the perfect choice!”

They looped a finger into the chain and twirled the charm in the air, the triangle gently drifting back and forth with their movements. “Combined with a little bit of Capture The Flag~!”

Bill raised his eyebrow. Alright, not what he was expecting but his curiosity was certainly piqued. “Elaborate.”

“Basically, I take this little guy and I—”

A snap, and the charm suddenly reverted back to a mess of golden bricks. “—scatter the pieces all across Gravity Falls,” they continued. “I then plop you down in the town, and leave you to find all of the pieces and put the entire thing back together.”

They tapped their beak with their finger. “I’d want to give you a decent amount of searching time, so let’s set the time limit from the beginning of June to sunrise on August thirty-first,” they said. “Both within the year twenty-thirteen, of course, so no trying to pull a ‘Well technically, I could still keep playing because you never specified which August thirty-first.’”

Their hand moved from their beak to their chin as they thought for a moment. “Although I guess there has been some debate on whether the current year is actually twenty-thirteen or twenty-fourteen,” they mused. “Time Baby’s literal-untimely death made things go all wonky for a bit and there’s still some lingering side effects. I’m pretty sure it’s only twenty-thirteen, but you know how it goes—”

They shrugged. “Whatever, from the beginning of June to August thirty-first all within the same Gregorian year. Three months, no more and no less.”

Bill was silent as he contemplated all of this, gaze shifting between Tangy and the scattered pieces of triangle. “Where does the Capture the Flag part come in?”

“Good question!” Tangy said. “So basically, once you get the pieces together, you’ve gotta find a way to keep hold of the charm by the time the game’s deadline hits!”

They flashed him a smile. “Which I doubt would be an issue for someone like you, but what’s a game without a few extra challenges thrown into the mix?”

Extra challenges, huh? That seemed vague enough to be sneaky. “And what does that mean, exactly?” he inquired. “Gonna pop down a couple of extra players to act as an opposing team to me or something?”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Tangy assured him. “I just figured you’d be surrounded by a lot of people who don’t like you, and would probably do anything to stop you from achieving your goals.”

Their smile widened. “I mean, if someone showed up and tried to turn my dimension inside out, I doubt I’d be willing to just let them walk around freely after that,” they elaborated further. “And if I found out they were collecting the pieces of a puzzle that would let them do that again, I’d probably do everything in my power to take those pieces away from them.”

A shrug. "That's just my own personal feelings, though. For all I know, the people down there could welcome you with open arms and do everything they can to help you find the pieces. Either way, though, you have to be the one holding them by the end of the game to count as the winner."

…Alright, so maybe it wasn’t as sneaky as he’d initially thought. 

Still, Bill had yet to find any sort of real catch in their offer, and Birdbrain had yet to circle back around to talking about the prize he’d receive if he won the game. “So, just so we’re all clear: you want me to waste three months hunting down some building blocks in a town I can’t stand, full of people I can’t stand?” he asked. “That’s your big, exciting game?”

He folded his arms behind his head. “Gotta say, Birdbrain, I’m not seeing much of an appeal to playing your little game. From where I’m standing, you put far more effort into your silly video than actually making your game interesting.”

A laugh. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure it’d be fun to go back to tormenting the suckers there for a bit. But I’ve been doing that for several decades now, and the novelty’s worn itself pretty thin.”

“Hey, it’s not like I could send you anywhere else,” Tangy pointed out. “What with the weirdness barrier around the town and everything, I’m kind of limited on options.”

They reached up to gently tap one of the scattered bricks with their finger, before the charm reformed itself into a full pyramid. “Which reminds me, I don’t believe we decided on your prize, did we?”

It took every ounce of willpower on Bill’s end to keep his expression neutral as the conversation shifted back to the topic of his prize, despite the initial glee from before bubbling up once again inside him. It really was too easy to get what he wanted out of people, wasn’t it? “We discussed it, but I don’t think we settled on an answer.”

Tangy let both the charm and their gaze fall back to the desk, and they reached over to turn the current page of his file to the next one. “Well, we’ve covered a few of the things you currently desire,” they said studiously, pupils shifting back and forth as they read. “Revenge, a chance to take over the multiverse again…a silly straw—”

“I believe we already established that I can make due without that last one for now,” Bill interrupted quickly.

“Sans the straw, there’s a number of options to select as your prize,” Tangy continued, and flipped to another page. “But so many of them wouldn’t even be worth all the effort of playing, what with that aforementioned barrier still around the town—”

They slapped the folder shut with one hand. “So, why not make that your prize instead?”

Bill blinked. “Wait, make what my prize?”

“The barrier, you goofball!” Tangy said with a delighted laugh. “You play my game and win, and I’ll shatter the barrier for you!”

…Heh? “Heh?”

“I don’t know how much clearer I can phrase it for you,” Tangy said. “Since all of my other options would still leave you stuck within the town limits, why not just get rid of the reason you were stuck in the first place?”

They pressed their hands together in a squishing motion, adding a raspberry for comedic effect. “So yep, that’s my offer! Find all the pieces of the charm, put ‘em back together, and keep hold of the entire thing before the sun rises on the final day of summer, and I’ll shatter that pesky barrier like glass for you!”

“...You’re bluffing.”

It was said far too unprofessionally, far too needy for his liking. But for the first time since he’d arrived, any common sense was momentarily ignored as Bill stared at them in utter shock. 

Out of all the things they could have suggested as a prize, out of all the things he could have suggested, not once did the thought of destroying the barrier cross his mind. Why would it? The only one who had any knowledge of how to collapse the barrier was—

Bill’s hand gripped the chair’s armrest, and he let out a grounding exhale of breath in an attempt to relax. He had to remain calm. Neither he nor his Nightmare Realm buddies had been able to break past the barrier, and he had a feeling that ol’ Sixer had no interest in spilling that information to his beloved family. 

And if Bill hadn’t been able to get the equation out of him, there was no way that Birdbrain would just know it off the top of—

“‘Gravity Falls Natural Law of Weirdness Magnetism and the Equation To Reverse It.’”

Tangy’s attention was now on the laptop, their fingers dancing across the keys for a moment before they pointed to the screen. “Huh, look at that!” they said delightedly. “There’s actually results!”

Bill’s grip on the armrest tightened, cotton fluff billowing out of the rips as his pupil bounced to the laptop for a millisecond. “...And how do I know you’re not just staring at an empty screen right now?”

“I don’t blame you for being suspicious,” Tangy said, and turned back to face him. “But I can promise you that I wouldn’t have offered the idea if I didn’t intend to follow through on it if you win the game—”

“So what do you get out of all of this?”

It was a question that had been lingering at the back of Bill’s mind, just barely out of reach. But upon hearing Birdbrain’s offer to shatter the barrier, something had finally clicked.

They had not once elaborated on why they wanted him to play their little game. 

The prize they were offering; it had to be the catch in their deal. Something so personally enticing to him that he wouldn’t think to question why they were offering it to him in the first place. 

Why would they be promising to give him so much, if they weren’t going to get anything out of it themselves?

Tangy tilted their head at his question. “What do you mean?”

“What are you getting out of this deal?” Bill repeated, and floated up out of his chair. “Out with it, Birdbrain; you wouldn’t be offering this deal if you weren’t getting something out of it in return.”

He hovered forward and placed his hands on the edge of the desk. “You said yourself that a deal wasn’t a deal if only one side was getting something out of the exchange,” he pointed out. “If I play and win, I get a prize.”

He leaned forward further, eye narrowing with suspicion. “So I ask again; what are you getting out of this deal?”

Much like the other times Bill had invaded their personal space, Tangy showed no sense of discomfort or annoyance at the action. Rather, they simply moved a hand back to the laptop and pressed it closed. “What do I get out of this?”

The hand moved to the charm on the desk, their fingers teasing the chain for a moment. “That’s an easy answer! I get the joy that comes from helping someone in need.”

Bill raised his eyebrow, unconvinced.

“I’m serious,” Tangy said, and rose up from their chair again. “The entire motivation behind giving people a chance to play my games is because I adhere to the idea that everyone out there deserves a chance to get their lives back on track. To get a second chance that many others might not be willing to give them.”

Their cheery demeanor grew unusually serious for a moment as their eyes fell to the desk before them. “Even if they squander that chance, at least that helping hand was extended to them in the first place…”

They were quiet for a moment, before their bright expression returned in full. “Also I’d like to point out that while you don’t have to trust my motives, I did go through all the trouble of bringing you here to make this deal in the first place,” they pointed out. “Why would I go through all this effort to bring you back, only to deceive you about what I have to offer?”

Bill could think of at least a dozen answers to their question off the top of his head, but he simply folded his arms across his chest. In their defense, it was a good point; why bother going through all that trouble if they had no plans to actually hold up their end of the bargain?

Sure, there was always a chance that they were lying about possessing the ability to destroy the barrier, but what benefit would it give them to do so? How would lying here further Birdbrain’s needs?

…Again, Bill could spend an eternity listing off potential guesses, but at the end of the day, they would just be guesses. Not actual answers behind their motives.

“I’m happy to give you as much time as you need to think the offer over,” Tangy said, and waved their hand over the desk. “But if it might help speed up the process—”

They pulled their hand back, and a blank piece of paper flew up from their desk and hovered between them. As Bill watched, the words ‘The Shelduck’s Game Contract’ began to magically form in big, orange (again with the orange) letters at the top of the paper. 

Letters that were quickly followed by a series of paragraphs in the same font, finishing off with two blank signature lines near the bottom of the page.

“I know you’re a man of handshakes,” Tangy said. “And we can absolutely do that as well. But my game requires a binding signature to take effect.”

Another wave of their hand and their signature appeared on the first blank line. “There we go, now I’m legally bound to uphold my end of the deal,” they said. “And if I don’t, you’re well within your legal rights to hit me with whatever punishment you see fit~! I do believe we mentioned the Unnaturally-Moist Dimension already? Or perhaps you’d want to do something worse to me?” 

A shrug before they folded their hands together. “Either way, my fate would be in your rightfully-unforgiving hands!”

Bill stared at them before his gaze moved back to the contract, slitted pupil darting back and forth as he absorbed every word, letter—even every punctuation mark—several times over. It was nothing they hadn’t previously discussed; an explanation of the game, the decided terms, and—

‘As agreed upon, the being known as Bill Cipher will receive the following upon winning the decided game; the complete and immediate destruction of the weirdness barrier that surrounds the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. Scenic Dimension 46'\.’

His gaze lingered on those words for a moment while he pondered over everything that Tangy had told him. There had to be something he’d missed, the catch he’d yet to find in their words.

But, on the other hand—

His shoulders tensed. They had countered his questions with legitimate answers. They were practically throwing themselves at him to make a deal, even going to far as to offer themselves as a punching bag if they tried to back out. They were promising to give him the very information that he had died trying to pry out of Ford’s mind—

One fatal mistake.

He didn’t even bother to hide the flash of red in his eye, as he snapped his pupil back to Tangy. “You’re serious about breaking the barrier if I follow all your rules and win your dumb little game?”

Tangy held up a hand. “As serious as the odes of plague in that 2020 punch you drank.”

“And all I have to do to win your game is put that little charm of yours back together and keep hold of it by the end of the summer?” Bill asked. “That’s it?”

Tangy snapped their fingers and the charm flew from the desk to their hand. “That’s all you’ve got to do.”

Bill looked from the charm to their laptop. “...And there’s absolutely zero chance of you just giving me the equation right now, even if I do everything in my power to torture it outta you?”

Another snap of their fingers and the laptop vanished in a flash of light. “You could certainly try,” Tangy said with a smile. “But I’m also aware of your vulnerability in the mindscape, and I feel like that probably puts you at a disadvantage in a fight—”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, point taken.”

Bill crossed his arms, eyelid narrowed in thoughtful silence for a moment, then another—

Aw, heck with it. Since when did he overthink this hard about anything?

“Gimme a pen.”

Tangy’s face lit up with excitement as they made a pen float up from the desk and into Bill’s hand. And within seconds, the blank signature line was occupied by a boldly written ‘BILL CIPHER’ in jagged capitals.

Their smile widening further, Tangy gestured the signed contract back towards them and rolled it up with a wave of their hand. “Looks like the game’s on~!”

“Ah, ah, ah, before that—” Bill held out a hand. “—now it’s my turn.”

Tangy gave a nod. “But of course! I’m nothing if not a duck of my word.”

They reached for Bill’s hand with their own, their palms barely making contact before both were enveloped in blue flames. Heatless flames, but the power behind the action could still be felt as the imaginary bonds of the deal travelled up through their arms and throughout their entire bodies.

Bill’s hand lingered in theirs as the flames died down, his grip tightening against their feathers. “If I win your stupid game, and you don’t shatter that barrier for me, I get free reign to torment your lying, feathered butt in the most horrific ways possible until the end of time.”

“Once again, duck of my word,” Tangy assured him. “But I would like to remind you that I only have to uphold my end of the deal if you win. If you lose, you can’t hold me accountable for your failures.”

Despite the eye roll that followed in response, Bill could feel the familiar rush of endorphins that always came with making a deal surge through him. A rush now paired with a swelling passion, as the realization that he had succeeded in playing his cards right.

He had a chance to destroy the barrier. To start again.

To finally be free.

His features twisted into a metaphorical grin. And this time, he would not be making any ‘fatal mistakes’. Take that, Stanford! Take that, Stanley! Take that, anyone who would not be getting in his way again!

“So, are you ready to begin?”

Once again, Birdbrain was just a master at interrupting his thoughts. But once again in their defense, they were also good at following those interruptions with a good point. “So, how’s this gonna work, then?” he asked aloud, gaze moving to their still-locked hands. “I possess you, then we pop on down to Hick Town, or—?”

Tangy tilted their head curiously. “Possess me?”

“Yeah, you know, so I can play your game?” Bill pointed out. “Can’t exactly go without a vessel to possess.”

He batted his eyelashes at them. “Unless you’re planning on just dropping me down there in my pure, unaltered form~?” he guessed. “Couldn’t blame you if you did, I’m a delight!”

Tangy chuckled. “Well, you are a delight, but I don’t plan on doing that,” they said. “Knowing you, you’d probably use it to your advantage and just turn the town upside down looking for the charm pieces.”

They raised their free hand in a shrug. “And while that’s not against the rules or anything, it would make the game a little too easy.”

“Had a feeling you’d lean that way," Bill said with a roll of his eye. "So then, when am I possessing you?”

Tangy chuckled, their smile widening just the faintest amount. “You’re still misunderstanding, Bill,” they said. “When did I ever say you were going to possess me in this game?”

“...What do you—”

There was a flash of light as Tangy broke their handshake, and Bill vanished. Their arm remained outstretched for a moment, gaze locked on the spot where Bill had been previously, before they let it fall with a giddy laugh that echoed throughout the domed room. “Wow, I can’t believe it!” they said, flapping their hands in excitement. “I actually managed to convince him to play one of my games! This is going to be so much fun!”

“Sounds like things are going well.”

Tangy’s gaze snapped to the archway at the sound of a new voice, grin widening as a tall woman stepped through. Unlike Bill’s entrance into the room, she walked with control and grace, her countless eyes shifting about as she took in the scenery. “I saw he had taken his leave, so I thought it safe to make my presence known.”

“Oh, hi, Jhessie~!” Tangy said delightedly, waving at her with their whole arm. “And you’d be right on that fact!”

They gave the woman a double thumbs-up as she approached the desk. “I convinced Bill to play a game!” they explained. “Not only that, you were right about him being suspicious about almost everything in the deal, while also being too darn stubborn to accept any chances to back out.”

Smiling wider, they reached for the triangle charm on the desk and held it up. “Also, it’s a good thing he was so focused on all of that, he didn’t even think about taking a closer look at this bad boy,” they said, and pressed a finger to their bill. “He also didn’t notice how I never actually ended up using my flashcards, despite them being one of the excuses I used to get him in here. Odd oversight on his part, I think.”

“The important part is that he accepted the deal,” she said, tilting her head upwards towards the glass dome. “I’m sure He’ll be pleased about that, as well.”

Tangy also turned their gaze upwards, as the hellfire and blood rain they had previously set for Bill melted back into the underwater view from before. They continued to stare for a moment, before Tangy dropped their gaze back to her. “Hey, Jheselbraum, can I ask you something?”

“You’re going to ask if my initial vision of Bill will come to pass,” Jheselbraum said, also letting the gaze of her multiple eyes fall to Tangy’s face.

Tangy playfully wagged a finger at her. “Nothing gets by you, huh, Miss Oracle?”

“Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure myself,” she admitted. “Or perhaps I struggle to believe it, despite witnessing the events of the premonition with my own eyes.”

She held her hands behind her back. “Regardless, while my visions usually come to pass in one way or another, the events of the future are not set in stone. Whatever happens will inevitably be up to him and the choices he makes during your game.”

“Well, either way, Bill’s on his way back to Gravity Falls for the summer so whatever happens will reveal itself in time,” Tangy said. “Oh, I should probably—”

With a snap, the charm vanished into the air. “There we go! Now his scavenger hunt can properly begin.”

“So, where did you end up hiding the pieces?” Jheselbraum asked.

Tangy tilted their head curiously. “You don’t know?”

“Just because I possess the ability to see into the future does not mean I choose to use it for everything,” she said. “It would make for a rather unsurprising, and therefore dull, lifestyle.”

“Fair enough,” Tangy said. “Well in that case, I won’t tell you! Let’s continue keeping it a surprise for everyone!”

With that, they clasped their hands together. “Well, I’ve probably got some time before he needs my help,” they said. “Care to share a glass of Time Punch with me while I wait? I’ve still got a mostly-full bottle of 2020.”

“I’m more partial to 3030 myself if you possess a bottle,” Jheselbraum said, before taking a seat in the chair previously occupied by Bill. “It’s currently unknown to most, aside from those of us blessed with the ability to see that far ahead.”

With a laugh, Tangy summoned a bottle and two empty glasses. Both of which—along with the rest of the room—were swiftly engulfed in shadow as a massive being passed overhead, beyond the glass of the domed roof.

Once again, both beings turned their heads upwards and watched in silence as a giant, pink axolotl floated lazily through the crystal blue waters, its magnificent body twisting to and fro for a few minutes before it eventually swam out of sight.

“Hmm, it appears I was right when I said He’d be pleased,” Jheselbraum observed thoughtfully. “Although He might be less so when he hears that you offered Bill some of your Time Punch.”

Tangy returned to pouring their glasses with a nervous chuckle. “Hey, come on, he was so suspicious of me when I first showed up,” they pointed out. “What better way to help him relax than to show him I’m a cool duck who’s willing to break a few rules with him?”

They cast her a concerned look. “...I’m not actually going to get in trouble, am I? The big guy would understand, right?”

Jheselbraum hummed with amusement. “Worry not, it was a joke.”

Tangy let out a laugh. “Heyyy, since when were you a jokey-jokerson?”

“Since I was able to predict every punchline while others could not predict my own,” she replied matter-of-factly. “But I’m serious when I say you needn’t worry. I can promise you that He’s pleased with the way things are unfolding, and is as eager to see how it’ll play out as we are.”

Their smile widened, before they waved the first poured glass in her direction. “Well, I certainly hope He remains pleased as time goes on,” they said, before getting to work on their own glass. “After all, the game has only just begun.”

“...That was incredibly cliché—”

“I know, but it sounded so cool and ominous that I just couldn't resist!”

They gestured for the bottle to lower itself to their desk as the two of them gave a toast (one immediately interrupted by an outcry of “Wait, I forgot to tell him the rules!” from Tangy), the base coming to a wobbly rest atop a stack of folders on the desk.

Specifically atop a thick, unopened folder, one that contained a decent number of papers regarding the subject within. On the outside of the folder itself however, there was nothing more than a simple picture to act as a label, stuck to the folder by a cutesy little sticker of the full moon. A picture that was thankfully unobscured by the bottle of punch. 

A picture of the Cetus constellation.

#Hayley Writes Triangulum #Gravity Falls #Triangulum The Fic #Bill Cipher #My Writing #Long Post #(Maybe I'll add more tags as needed later) #(That's fine for now)

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Children's Python Shopping List

If you've decided on a Children's python (Antaresia childreni) for your first pet snake, you're in for a treat! These lovely little pythons are awesome pets and fun to watch and interact with. You can expect your pet Children's python to grow around 1-1.5 m (3-5 ft) as an adult, and they can live to be over 20 years old with appropriate care.

Enclosure setup shopping list:

You will want to set up your enclosure so your snake has room to stretch out, climb, and explore! You will need to set up a temperature gradient of about 32-25 C (90-78 F), and Children's pythons need a humidity level of around 50-60%.

Enclosure. For a baby Children's python, a 20 gallon is fine, and a 40 gallon works well for yearlings. As an adult, your snake will need an enclosure at least as long as they are, and ideally with vertical space to climb. A 120 gallon enclosure is a good minimum, and bigger is always better!

If your enclosure has a screen lid, two sets of screen clips. Never bring a snake home without screen clips!

To retain humidity, if your enclosure has a screen lid, cut a piece of cardboard or plywood to cover at least half of the lid to help keep humidity in.

A dome heat lamp with ceramic sockets. Any big reptile brand is fine - Fluker's, Zoo Med, and Exo Terra are all trustworthy brands here. Make sure your dome lamp is rated for the wattage of bulb you will be using - 150 is usually a safe bet.

Heat bulbs. I use ceramic heat emitters for my Children's pythons. You can choose to provide halogen light and UVB if you'd like, but as these are nocturnal snakes, monitor your snake's reaction to visible light - some individuals won't adapt well to it, and that's okay! Arcadia makes high-quality heat sources your pet will love. The wattage you choose will depend on your enclosure size and the temperature in your home.

A thermostat to plug your heat source into. Vivarium Electronics thermostats are excellent but pricey; you can go as expensive as you like but here is a cheap one I swear by.

Digital thermometer/hygrometer reader with probes - Zoo Med and Exo Terra make great dual gauges. Avoid stick-on dials!

At least two identical hides, one on either side

A container to make a humidity hide. Simply cut a hole in the lid, fill with damp moss, and you're set! Providing your snake with a humid hide will help them have perfect sheds every time!

A large water bowl

(Insider tip: if you go to the grocery store and buy a pack of black plastic food storage containers, you can easily make hides, humidity hides, and a water bowl out of them! Here's my go-to option, you can easily take care of all that for one baby snake cheaply and easily!)

Sphagnum moss for your humid hide. Make sure your humid hide is always moist!

Substrate. Children's pythons can do well on a range of substrates, but options that help hold humidity are best. Cypress mulch and coconut fiber are good options.

Climbing branches and other decor - climbing is a must, and vines, rocks, and tunnels made from cardboard tubes are other great options. Children's pythons love to climb, so be sure to take advantage of vertical space!

General care:

Feeding tongs.

Food for your snake. Your offered food should be about 10% of your snake's body weight.

A soldering iron, believe it or not! A cheap soldering iron will serve you well throughout your snake's life - you can use it to easily melt holes in bowls and containers to make hides.

A small snake hook can help you with handling your snake, especially if you're nervous.

If you're Australian, be sure to check your state's laws and make sure you have the appropriate license before you buy your snake. Be sure to include any associated fees in your budget!

And some common beginner mistakes:

Don't move your snake to a separate enclosure to feed. It's a myth that will make your snake "aggressive" - it can actually cause more mistaken feeding bites as they associate handling with being fed!

Don't worry if your snake spends most of their time hiding, especially while young. A hiding snake is a happy snake!

Don't be concerned if your snake is a little jumpy or defensive when you first bring them home. Children's pythons can be jumpy babies, but this will improve with gentle handling and time.

Don't over-handle your snake, and always give them at least a week to settle in before offering food for the first time.

Never handle your snake for two days after they've eaten - that could cause a regurgitation.

Children's pythons are awesome pets! They're uncomplicated to care for and are generally very hardy and not too fussy. If you take care to set up your enclosure well, you'll be all set for many happy and fun years with your new buddy!

#not a rating #snake shopping lists #children's pythons

[sinning-23]

Ripples (Usopp x Siren!Reader)

Warnings: mild violence? reader is hungies

Enjoy

The sound of his name in honeyed tones draws his attention. Usopp whips around almost instantaneously, searching for the source of the sound. It sends shivers down his spine skin prickling with goosebumps as he swallows hard. It was intriguing, to say the least.

It's hard to shake, but he blinked curiosity away and continued to walk with the rest of his crew. Nami stopped when he did to try and figure out why he seemed so jumpy all of a sudden before continuing onward.

They trudge through the greenery still, and the same tone, more...desperate sounding calls him again. Yes, so sweet, so inviting, but also needy...like the voice had be craving for something...for him. His chest heaves with labored breathes as he becomes more and more determined to find the source. Who was calling out...And so feverishly too.

What needed him so bad?

"Usopp!" Nami calls, grabbing his wrist as he shakes out of the stuppor once more.

“What’s your deal?” She questions with a whisper, pulling him close so as to not draw attention or concern to them.

“You don’t hear it??? ” He swallows hard, pupils blown wide as his voice coming from something so angelic made him... warmer, somehow.

"What? No, just calm down. The sooner we get out of here the better." Nami huffs, releasing him, only for Usopp to turn away and follow the voice, and call off his crewmates drowned out.

He twists around trees, bushes, vines, and stumps, the air getting more moist as he ventures on, clawing any shrubbery out his way. He sinks into mud, and gravel, calfs becoming suken into the soil as he reaches a pond of sorts, rocks covered in moss, bluebells,and painted ferns.

Its too quiet, even the sound of what should be frogs groacking and bugs chittering away is nonexistent. Usopp's stomach twists at the severity of his situation, now waist deep in what feels like quicksand. Twisting, turning and struggling does n good ashe only digs himself further down, the ripples in the once still water before him becoming more and more prominent...and a hell of a lot closer.

He cries out for help, a plead that is only met with silence and the shoshing of mud. He calls again again, the last time being shuhsed by the sound of his name, laced with sugar. He gulps, fear thic in his throat. in front of him is just barely half a face, apair of shining (e/c) hues starign right back at him.

It rises more, nose, lips, nec and collar being revealed. He's still cautions, not in much a position to run away. He let your webbed hands and sharp nails trace his face, twirling one of his locs between your pointer and thumb.

"Let me save you, Usopp" You hum, feeling the fear in him melt away. He leans into your touch, his body slowly becoming less and less tethered to the mud and more to you as he's dragged into cool water. Your hands wander, pulling his shirt, then his body closer to yours, your tail doing its best to avoid grazing him.

His pupils fill the brown of his eyes and you smile, teeth sharp and ivory colored. He tries to tread water, his feet no longer touching the mossy and rocky botton of the pond. Your nails work quickly at tearing the fabric of his shirt, letting it slide off and sink to the bottom. He doesn't speak, only resting his head against your shoulder as you ready your teeth to sink into the flesh of his shoulder.

He’s sweet, the metalic and bitter sweetness makes you hum in delight,l. You tear away a sizeable chunk, the pain sapping him out of his trance, but this far too late. His screams are cut short when you pull him below the waters surface. He fights to gasp for ait but you're quick o pull him back down, sinking yout teeth into him again.

His mouth and lungs filling with water once more when he screams and crimson mixes with the clear water, the signs making you grin. The sound is muffled by water. He doesn't stop though, his final attempt to escape serving useful when trio tugged him away from your unrelenting grasp.

A hiss slips past your lips as the three look at you with a look you loved far too much. Fear. You slip back into the water licking the blood form your lips and razored teeth.

Nami had managed to grab Usops hand mid drown as Luffy and Sanji helped pull her back AND drag him from your grip. They made haste to leave the area but upon further speculation....they had realized their swordsman...was gone.

And…

unfortunately, all Zoro needed to hear was the sound of 'Luffy's' voice, calling out to fim from the wet, mud and moss-covered path ahead.

#x reader #headcannons #reader is a mermaid #reader is a siren #fantasy #one piece #one piece usopp #usopp one piece #ussop x reader #one piece live action #one piece live action usopp #opla usopp #opla x reader #one piece netflix #opla

[bakubunny]

hi bunny, it's your turn to play a game 💚

You could barely see the dirt path in front of you. The shine of the moon and glimmer of the stars above were you only source of light as you picked your way past scratching bushes and and tangled branches. Your knees hurt from a nasty fall you had taken prior, the start of this whole predicament you were in. What was supposed to be a lovely camping trip with friends had taken a turn for the worse when you'd slipped off the side of a steep hill, taking a tumble farther down that you'd even remembered climbing.

Pulling out your cellphone, you tried to peek past the broken screen to check the time. Half an hour until midnight, if the numbers were correct. And your phone was at 3%.

A rustling in the bushes startles you away from the view of your screen and you grab at the branch you had picked up. For safety? For comfort? As a weapon? You didn't know.

"Who's there?" you whisper, unsure if speaking was even the appropriate answer in this moment.

You feared silence, but you feared a response even more. The rustling started up again behind you, causing prickling fear to run shivers down your spine. Taking no chances, you pushed forward at a faster pace, eyes constantly darting around you for any signs of danger.

Fear grips at your heart as the rustling seems to continue, getting closer. An echo of a whisper is caught by your ear — "who's there?" — but it sounds nothing like your own voice or any voice you recognize.

It causes you to break out in a sprint, dark path ahead be damned. Whatever is behind you sounds close on your heels and you want nothing to do with it. Eyes darting every direction, you try to discern a possible way of escape.

Up ahead, hidden by some trees and covered in vines, what appears to be a cave entrance is to the left of the beaten path. Beyond that, the dirt road you're running on continues on for what seems like ages.

Do you hide in the cave? Or keep running?

oh oh!! um. i feel like there’s a chance it’s not a cave so i’m going to keep running.

#finally getting back to this #it’s so stinking good neon #aaaahhhh #this is probably gonna end poorly lmao #choose your own adventure #what a fun concept!

[old-world-bird]

The ✨✨BIG✨✨ post

About all the flowers and stuff, starring this piece of mine. I’ve also included some wips ✨

As was mentioned previously, I became obsessed with flower language, and the person, who commissioned this piece, is a fan of it as well, so we happen to have a lovely collaboration with an unholy (for me personally) amount of tiny details and (not so) hidden messages.

Thanks again @thecheshiredragon​ for fleshing out this piece with me!

Source used: Language of flowers by Greenaway, Kate Additionaly I’ve purchased Floriography by Jessica Roux, which is smaller but has an index by meanings and also some bouquets and flower pairing suggestions I’ll leave links in the replies

So, not to waste any more time-

First of all,✨THEM ✨

You can notice that Sergei and Strahd have different lines, especially on their hair - Sergei has more rounded lines, while Strahd is all sharp’n’edgy.

A quick demonstration of the lineart reworking process. That “different line type” idea wasn’t there from the begginig! I guess that’s my favourite thing about working on a big commissions - I have plenty of time to come up with new ideas and implement them.

White lilac on the Sergei - youthful innocence Meadow saffron - my best days are past

Yep, the white lilac is blue, because I really wanted to draw Sergei in white shirt, because, you know, the INNOCENCE.

He, who’ll follow you into the darkness

Several things I love about this half: while Sergei walks in the light, Strahd has already stepped into the shadow, and Bucefalus is awaiting him there.

Globe amaranth in the tapestry - immortality and unfading love.

Yep, shadows on the right weren’t the only foreshadowing here.

He, who’ll die tomorrow

One of my favorite detail: the knight on the tapestry stabs the monster because good always defeats evil, but the shadows tell us it will be otherwise this time.

Mourning bride on the left - I have lost all Gum Cistus on the right - I shall die tomorrow

It’s more of a happy coincedence, but I love that the color of flowers matches the colour of the brothers’ clothes.

All this toxicity~

Book said that vines stand for intoxication, but I never found out, if it means any particular vines, or anything creeping in general, so I went with some undefining vines, and also made them dead for the sake of even MORE drama. The pattern on the carpet is also a vine.

When we decided upon the color palette, I also suggested a green carpet as an option. Some sources interpret green as a color of jealousy, hopelessness, and/or a silent acceptance of what is happening. But we agreed that red one is more of a “Zarovich thing”.

And then there are these thing

Honestly, I started this piece without any particular idea, so I randomly threw some roses and kinda-oak leaves, and this is also a Strahd’s throne reference.

But after finishing the whole picture, I looked up the book, and it told me that oak stands for bravery, and roses, of course, have a ton of meanings depending on their color and species, but the common meaning is love, and I think that “Love and Bravery” do sound like something Zarovich family would use in their heraldic.

And the column piece was inspired by the decotive stone slabs exposition from our local museum, but I don’t have any proper photos from there. I kinda was wandering there, saw one of the stones and was like “damn, I want smth similar for the columns in my current commission”

✨ ✨ ✨

That’s all for today, hope you liked this post. Let me know if you’d like to see more of me explaining my own artwork and low-key fangirling it ✨

#curse of strahd #flower language #symbolism #strahd von zarovich #sergei von zarovich #digital illustration #artist on tumblr